Suryakumar, Agha vow aggression; India kick off campaign vs UAE

Both India and Pakistan captains Suryakumar Yadav and Salman Agha indulged in the war of words to hot up the simmering Asia Cup clash to be played on Sunday in Dubai.

They spiced up an already over-hyped match by vowing to stick to the aggressive approach but within the limits of the rules of the game.

This is for the first time both the countries will face off after the recent border clashes a few months ago.

"If someone wants to be aggressive on the field, they are more than welcome to do that. You can't stop fast bowlers because that's what keeps them going. So whoever wants to be aggressive, they are more than welcome,” said Agha.

"From my side there are no instructions to anyone as long as they stay grounded,” he added.

Suryakumar asserted aggression is necessary and key to a nail-biting finish. Skipper Suryakumar agreed with his Pakistani counterpart.

"Aggression is always there on the field and without aggression you cannot play the game," Suryakumar said.

India will kick-start their campaign against the UAE in Dubai on Wednesday.

“I feel UAE have been playing some exciting brand of cricket. They came very very close to all the teams in the tri-series, as Waseem rightly said ‘we could not cross the line.’ I hope and I wish him and his team to cross the line in the Asia Cup,” said Suryakumar ahead of the match against the UAE.

“It is an exciting format, a very challenging one. It is fast and at the same time, it has a lot of challenges. I am sure this is the format where any team can make a big impact and I am sure all the captains sitting here, must be agreeing to that as well,” opined the Indian skipper.

India, who have lifted the title a record eight times, are overwhelming favourites to win the tournament. Suryakumar played down the favourites tag.

“I have not heard of it. When you come to play, you know about the preparation. If your preparation is good then you are confident.

“We are playing a T20 game after a long time as a team but we landed here four days back and have done extensive preparation. Moreover, we played IPL, so I think our preparation is good,” asserted the swashbuckling batsman.

Suryakumar’s Pakistani counterpart Salman also refused to tag any team as favourites to win the title.

“I don’t think any team is favourite. On a given day, you have to play good cricket. So all the teams have equal chances,” he said.

Salman also underlined the fact that the experience of playing in the Pakistan Super League (PSL) in the UAE will be handy.

“Most of us have played PSL here. It is hard to say that we have any advantage but we certainly know the conditions. We know what it takes to do in the whole UAE. We know that condition very well,”

Meanwhile, UAE captain Muhammad Waseem vowed to give their best against all the teams.

“We had a good series. We have taken a lot of positives from the tri-series. We will try to play our best cricket on a given day, either it is against India or Pakistan,” said the UAE captain.

The UAE has been placed in the same group as India and Pakistan along with Oman. UAE played in a tri-series along with Afghanistan and Pakistan in the precursor of the Asia Cup. UAE failed to win any match but came very close in a few games.

Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan ruled out setting any target of reaching the last four or final.

“For us we are going to keep things simple as we did in the last couple of ICC events. We are not going to put extra pressure on the boys that we have to get to the semis or we have to get to the final,” said Rashid.

“That is a different task, which comes after you have put in all the hard work. First, we think about putting 100 percent in the ground. We never thought of getting into the semis in the World Cup but we reached.

“Last three or four years we have played a lot of ICC events. It comes to the effort that you put in the ground. We keep things simple and try to forget what happened in the past whom we have beaten and where we reached. We focus on the next match. that is what is under our control,” he added.

Bangladesh captain Litton Das said: "In the recent past, we played three series and we have done really well that has boosted our confidence."