THE EDGE: Our cricket tipster The Edge previews Sunday’s Asia Cup between INDIA v PAKISTAN with a recommended BETDAQ bet.

MATCH OVERVIEW:

India v Pakistan – the fixture we don’t get often in the cricketing world – takes place in the Asia Cup on Sunday on BETDAQ Betting Exchange. A rivalry as old as time, and it’s really true what they say about this fixture – the cricketing world stops when they meet. The Asia Cup has produced more meetings over recent years, but usually we’ve only seen this fixture in major tournaments. It is a great shame that the boards don’t allow bi-lateral series to take place – the BCCI don’t even allow Pakistani players in the IPL! It’s probably the one major thing the IPL is missing because Pakistan have some of the best and most exciting players in the world.

Despite a wealth of talent in the bowling department, Pakistan come into this tournament with a lot of injuries. Their star bowler Shaheen Afridi has already been ruled out for the whole tournament, along with Mohammad Wasim with a side strain only this week. Pakistan have brought in Hasan Ali but his confidence must be pretty low after being dropped for the Netherlands tour, and this competition. It’s clear Pakistan won’t be at their best with the ball, and they have a huge task dealing with this fantastic Indian batting line-up.

What can you say about India apart from the fact that they have a wealth of talent at the moment. They could play three sides they have so many batters in-form after a very successful IPL. Obviously we are going to have the Virat Kohli debate again here – does he add value to this attacking batting line-up? He remains a man under pressure. As always, this is going to be a fascinating match between two nations who rarely meet.

WEATHER AND PITCH WATCH:

Dubai is a fitting location for this match. Probably the only stadium in the UAE that could host a fixture this big. IPL fans will know this venue well having seen a number of IPL’s in the UAE over the past few years. In general, scoring has been very good here. We have a huge playing field, but because we tend to get evening dew we can still see plenty of sixes. I would expect the groundsmen to have prepared a very good wicket here, especially considering it has to be played on a few times. It will be at its best now, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see 180+. If I won the toss I’d definitely bowl considering the dew, but obviously this is a high pressure game and the batters might be more free batting first.

RECOMMENDED BET:

Pakistan missing key bowlers decided the game here for me. India have an exceptionally talented batting order, but their bowling wasn’t as good as Pakistan. With the injuries, they are definitely more in line together now so India’s batting wins the game in my opinion. I know Pakistan have a superb top three or four, but their middle order just doesn’t back that up enough. Ironically they have pretty good stats but the top order bats like it doesn’t trust the middle order! I know it was the ODI format, but Pakistan didn’t exactly play fantastic against the Netherlands – you could even say the Netherlands had a good chance to win two out of the three ODI’s, especially the last one. India know how to handle the pressure of a big game with all the IPL experience, and they generally just tick every box here.

The Edge Says:
Two points win India to beat Pakistan at 1.45 with Betdaq Exchange.

View the market here -> https://betdaq.biz/IndPak

IN-RUNNING STRATEGY:

I wouldn’t go into this game with a fully set in-running strategy here until we see conditions. We do have the benefit of seeing a game at this venue on Saturday, but a lot of your in-running trading should focus around whether or not we get dew. As we saw in most of the IPL games here over two seasons, the dew changes the game so much. No dew and it might actually be a little tricky to bat and 150 could be par. A heavy dew and we’re looking at 200! I would spend a few overs looking for the signs of dew, and then go from there. I do feel the best angle into this game will be taking on the Pakistan bowling with their injury worries – we all know India are a batting powerhouse anyway, and if Pakistan aren’t at their best with the ball they can suffer here. Given the amount of ticks on offer too, I wouldn’t mind taking on Virat Kohli – we had a good time going against him in England – let’s see how he goes in this tournament!