Pakistan captain Babar Azam arrived in Ahmedabad on Wednesday, October 4 for the captain's day ahead of the ICC Men's World Cup 2023 set to commence on October 5. The Pakistani skipper got a grand welcome. All the captains of the ten participating teams will be present for the event set to take place at the Narendra Modi Stadium which will host the tournament opener between the finalists of the 2019 edition- England and New Zealand.
After the welcome bestowed upon Babar, the 28-year-old met India captain Rohit Sharma who was already in the city. The duo hugged each other and even interacted with each other. Notably, India and Pakistan are set to meet in the same city on October 14. The video of Babar's meet and greet with Rohit before the Captain's Day has gone viral.
Take a look at the video here:
Pakistan will begin their campaign with a match against the Netherlands on October 6 at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad. They will also lock horns against Sri Lanka at the same venue before travelling to Ahmedabad for the high-voltage match at the world's largest cricket stadium. Bengaluru, Chennai and Kolkata are other cities that will host Pakistan's matches in the World Cup.
As far as the result of Pakistan's warm-up matches are concerned, they tasted a defeat in each of their two matches, losing to New Zealand by 5 wickets in their first game while succumbing to a 14-run defeat to Australia in their second. These two matches were also played in Hyderabad.
Pakistan squad: Babar Azam (captain), Shadab Khan, Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Abdullah Shafique, Mohammad Rizwan, Saud Shakeel, Iftikhar Ahmed, Salman Ali Agha, Mohammad Nawaz, Usama Mir, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Shaheen Afridi, Mohammad Wasim