Pakistan cricket team will begin their campaign in the Asia Cup 2025 tournament against Oman in match No. 4 at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Friday.
Pakistan and Oman are both part of Group A in the league stages with arch-rivals India and United Arab Emirates being the other two teams.
Team India have already begun with a massive nine-wicket win over UAE on Wednesday night. Pakistan have not won the Asia Cup in the T20I format ever and their last title win in the tournament came back in 2012 in the ODI format.
Pakistan could miss the services of their captain Salman Ali Agha. According to various Pakistan media reports, Salman missed the entire training session at the ICC Academy in Dubai on Wednesday evening due to neck spasm.
The Pakistan media manager later informed the media that Salman was suffering from a ‘mild spasm’ and should be fit to play in the opening match against Oman on Friday and later against India on Sunday. If Salman fails to get fit for the match against Oman, pacer Shaheen Afridi can be given the reigns of the Pakistan team.
Shaheen is a former captain of Pakistan T20I team before Salman Ali Agha replaced him. He is also captain of Lahore Qalandars team which won the Pakistan Super League (PSL) 2025 title earlier this year.
Pakistan can also choose between pacer Haris Rauf and leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed depending on the surface laid out in Dubai on Friday. The pitch for India’s game in Dubai was a slow one with plenty of help for the spin bowlers which meant that Team India opted to play three spinners.
This will be the first T20I match between Pakistan and Oman. Jatinder Singh’s side haven’t had a lot of match time as well, their last series against the United States was back in February this year. Oman, of course, lost all three matches in the series.
Pakistan appear to have a settled line-up with Fakhar Zaman, Sahibzada Farhan and Saim Ayub in the top 3. All-rounder Mohammad Nawaz has been in brilliant form as well, ending up as the leading wicket-taker in the recent tri-series involving Afghanistan and UAE which Pakistan ended up winning.
Asia Cup 2025 Match No. 4 Pakistan vs Oman Predicted Playing 11
Pakistan: Sahibzada Farhan, Saim Ayub, Fakhar Zaman, Salman Agha (C)/Khushdil Shah, Hasan Nawaz, Mohammad Haris (WK), Mohammad Nawaz, Faheem Ashraf, Shaheen Afridi, Sufiyan Muqeem, Abrar Ahmed/Haris Rauf
Oman: Aamir Kaleem, Jatinder Singh (C), Hammad Mirza, Hassnain Shah, Mohammad Nadeem, Ashish Odedara, Vinayak Shukla (WK), Sufyan Mehmood, Shakeel Ahmed, Samay Shrivastava, Mohammad Imran