The former Australian allrounder Shane Watson has said that the first India Vs Pakistan game in the upcoming Asia Cup is going to be very important for both the teams because it will set the tone for the entire tournament and whichever team wins the first match will put themselves in a great position to win the tournament too.
The result of the first India Vs Pakistan game on Sunday might not affect the qualification chances of either of the two teams to the Super 4 round, because both teams have to play a game each Hong Kong and they are expected to win that game. So, regardless of the result of the first game, both India and Pakistan are very likely to be in super 4.
Pakistan would draw a lot of confidence from the result of last India Vs Pakistan game: Shane Watson
But, according to Shane Watson, the first victory can give either of the two teams the momentum that they can carry throughout the tournament. Watson was speaking about the Asia Cup on ICC’s show named ICC review and when he was asked which team he would personally pick as favorite to win the tournament, he picked India, but Watson also insisted that the Pakistani team would have drawn a lot of confidence from the last T20 World Cup game that they played against India.
The last T20 World Cup was the first World Cup ever where Pakistan beat India and they did it by a margin of 10 wickets. Watson is of the view that Pakistan is the kind of team which turns extremely dangerous when they are riding on confidence and they will be confident coming into this Asia Cup because of the last result that they had achieved against India in the T20 World Cup.
"Everyone watches the game, especially India vs Pakistan. Without a doubt, it is a high pressure game, but within the group, we want to create a normal atmosphere and don't want to hype this game within ourselves. For us, it is just a game of cricket." – Rohit Sharma (In Star)
— CricketMAN2 (@ImTanujSingh) August 21, 2022
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Shane Watson, however, still reckons that India has got too much of a firepower to make sure that they get back to winning ways against Pakistan and the men in blue might go all the way to win the tournament as well.