Predicting India's strongest playing XI for their Asia Cup opening match

Manish Pandey

Manish Pandey started his career off with a bang with a century against Australia in just his 3rd match, but since then, he hasn't been as fluent with the bat. In the year of 2017, where he played 8 innings, he could only score 1 half century in ODIs. But this is completely contrasting to his fortunes in T20Is where he is scoring at an astounding average of 94 this year.

Although his strike rate may be a bit on the low side, his consistency is remarkable. He was selected based on his form for India A in which he scored more than 306 runs in 4 innings without even being dismissed once in the recently concluded quadrangular series.

Dinesh Karthik

The number 5 slot is a toss-up between Dinesh Karthik and Ambati Rayudu, but Dinesh Karthik may be a better choice because of his superior strike rate and form. Due to MS Dhoni's waning finishing skills, India is in need of a good number 5 batsman who can accelerate when the time comes and can anchor the innings in case of a top-order collapse.