World No. 1 T20I team India will face arch-rivals Pakistan in their third Group A match of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 on Sunday (February 15). The match between the two former champions is scheduled
to take place at the R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. India have won 7 out of 8 matches so far against the Men in Green in the T20 World Cup and Suryakumar Yadav’s men will start as favourites on Sunday as well but according to former India skipper Rohit Sharma, he doesn’t believe in the word favourites.
The captain of India’s 2024 T20 World Cup winning team has warned the defending champions ahead of their upcoming matches in the tournament by stating that it doesn’t matter what the team has done in the past. As per Rohit, a team has to play good cricket on a particular day to bag two points; otherwise, they might end up losing against any team.
“Firstly I never believed in this word called favourites. It’s such a funny game and we’ve seen it now there’s so much that has happened in this last 10 years of international cricket. All these teams have so much exposure now playing T20 cricket. You can’t just go and think that it’s a two-point victory for us. You just have to play good cricket on that particular day to achieve those points otherwise you might end up going home without anything,” Rohit said during a recent event in Dubai.
Rohit Sharma speaking about T20 cricket🎙️ pic.twitter.com/ZOcrQBKQep
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“So it’s not about what you’ve done in the past, what is your team like, players are in form or not form. You just have to play well on that particular day because every team is capable of beating any team on that particular day,” he added.
In the ICC World Cups, India have only lost one match against Pakistan. And that defeat came in the 2021 edition of the T20 World Cup. Rohit was a member of the Indian team when they lost by 10 wickets against the Babar Azam-led Pakistani team in Dubai on October 24, 2021.
In T20Is, India have won all of their last five matches against the Pakistani team which includes three wins in Asia Cup last year and one win each in 2022 and 2024 T20 World Cups.
