Asia Cup: Ricky Ponting predicts winner of much-awaited India vs Pakistan match

Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has predicted the winner of the Asia Cup match between India and Pakistan.

Asia Cup is scheduled to begin on Aug. 27 in the UAE and the arch-rivals India and Pakistan come face to face the following day at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.

The last time these two sides met in Dubai, Pakistan thrashed India by 10 wickets at T20 World Cup last year. With another edition of the tournament coming up later this year, Asia Cup is being played in the T20 format.

However, India have a superior head-to-head against Pakistan in the T20Is, having won seven out of their nine meetings.

On the latest episode of The ICC Review, Ponting gave his prediction for the upcoming clash and said that he will stick with India to triumph in the big game.

"I'll stick with India to win that clash against Pakistan," said Ponting.

Even though Ponting backed Rohit Sharma and Co to win the match on Aug.28, the cricketer-turned-coach hailed Pakistan for producing superstar players.

"That's taking nothing away from Pakistan because they are an incredible cricket nation that continues to present out-and-out superstar players," added Ponting.

Just like England and Australia in Tests, India and Pakistan can have the biggest rivalry in Test cricket, according to Ponting, who captained Australia to 5-0 win in the Ashes 2006-07.

India and Pakistan haven't faced each other in the longest format since playing out a draw in 2007 in Bengaluru.

"When I think about rivalries, Australia and England and Ashes cricket is the pinnacle I've always thought of for our Test match game. I'm sure India and Pakistanis will say the same about that and the actual rivalry would be the pinnacle of Test match cricket for those two countries as well," added Ponting.

India is a part of Group A in the Asia Cup 2022, along with Pakistan and a Qualifier Team (TBD). The final of Asia Cup is scheduled to be played on Sept. 11 in Dubai.

The BCCI recently announced India's Asia Cup squad, which did not include key pacer Jasprit Bumrah, who is currently recovering from an injury. He, along with Harshal Patel, are at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru for rehab.

India's Asia Cup squad: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Deepak Hooda, Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravi Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Avesh Khan. Standby: Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, Deepak Chahar.

Pakistan's Asia Cup squad: Babar Azam (c), Shadab Khan, Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Iftikhar Ahmed, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shahnawaz Dahani, Usman Qadir.