India vs Pakistan, T20 World Cup 2022: The outcome of India vs Pakistan T20 WC fixture on Sunday will highly depend on individual performances of its key bowlers Shaheen Afridi and Mohammed Shami. Notably, Shami hasn't played a single match for India in T20 format since last edition of T20 WC and was picked in the team as injured Jasprit Bumrah's replacement, while Shaeen, on the other hand, hasn't played an international match for Pakistan since July due to knee injury. Now, if star pacers Shami and Shaheen are the deciding factors then who has an upper edge? 1983 World Cup winning skipper Kapil Dev believes that there can't be comparison between the two as the Pakistani speedster is miles ahead on current form.
"You can't judge anything by just one over. Afridi was spot on when talked about looking at the performances of the last two years where Shaheen has been very good. Whenever he has got an opportunity, he has made an impact. I wouldn't even like to compare (Shami and Shaheen). Shami hasn't played a lot of cricket of late. I would have perhaps compared Bumrah with Afridi if he was there but can't compare Shami and Afridi because there is a lot of difference," Kapil Dev said.
Just days before flying for Australia, India's chances of winning the T20 World Cup 2022 suffered a huge blow as their leading pacer Jasprit Bumrah was ruled out of the tournament due to back issues. Deepak Chahar was another player who was one of the frontrunners to replace Bumrah in Indian squad but he too got injured, making way for senior seamer Mohammed Shami.
India's T20 World Cup squad: Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Dinesh Karthik (wicket-keeper), Hardik Pandya, R. Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Shami.