Pakistan’s next challenge comes in the form of the men’s event at the Asian Games, starting at the Quarter-final stage against a yet-to-be decided conteder.
Head coach Mike Hesson wants to match the energy that his side brought out at the Asia Cup Final last year, where India edged out Pakistan in a nail-biter.
India are the No.1 ranked side in the ICC Men’s T20I Team Rankings, and have back-to-back ICC Men’s T20 World Cup titles to their name.
Both teams are directly seeded into the Quarter-finals and hence will not face-off against each other immediately, but might meet at a later stage.
“India are the benchmark in terms of white-ball cricket at the moment and our challenge is to catch up to that,” said Hesson in a pre-departure camp.
“We are preparing as best as we can and if we get an opportunity to play [India], we will certainly put them under pressure as we were able to do in the final of the Asia Cup.
“There is a lot of cricket to be played between now and before being able to play the final for both sides, so we are not getting too far ahead of ourselves.”
