Asia Cup 2018: India's Predicted XI

The Asia Cup 2018 is set to kickstart from September 15 as Sri Lanka will take on Bangladesh in the opening match. India, on the other hand, will play their first match on September 18 against Hong Kong at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, Dubai.

India's regular skipper and ace batsman, Virat Kohli has been rested for the tour and Rohit Sharma has been assigned the duty of leading the side. Apart from Virat's position, India will also make other few changes as well after a not so good One Day series against England. Here is the Predicted XI of the Indian side that may take the field in India's opening match:

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Openers (Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma)

India will look play with their most successful opening pair of Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma in this series as well. Both the players will be hungry to score runs as Dhawan miserably failed to impress during the test matches in which he played in the recently concluded series against England.

Rohit Sharma, on the other hand, will look to make the most out of this series to show the selectors his worth in the side after he was excluded from the test series.

Middle Order (Ambati Rayudu, MS Dhoni(wk), Manish Pandey)

Mahendra Singh Dhoni

In the absence of Kohli, Ambati Rayadu is likely to be given an opportunity at his spot of number three. Rayudu was selected earlier as well for the ODI series against England but was left out just before its commencement as he failed the Yo-Yo Test. But now as he has cleared it, he will be available from the first match itself.

At number 4, MS Dhoni will be seen after his not so successful time against England in both ODIs and T20Is. Dhoni will not be wanting to bat lower than number four as he now takes time to adjust in the middle consuming more balls.

Just like Rayudu, Manish Pandey has been also called back to the side after his successful performances during the Quadrangular Series where he amassed 306 runs in four innings without being dismissed for even once.

All-Rounders (Kedar Jadhav and Hardik Pandya)

Hardik Pandya

Apart from Hardik Pandya who has been a consistent member of team India, Kedar Jadhav is also expected to make it to the Playing XI after coming back from an injury. The inclusion of Jadhav will make sure the exclusion of Dinesh Karthik from the side.

Bowlers (Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal and Jasprit Bumrah)

Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal

The Indian bowlers will have all those four names of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal and Jasprit Bumrah as their bowlers. The spin-twins of Kuldeep and Chahal will continue to impress in the conditions of UAE as it will suit their bowling style there also.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar will also be making his comeback to the side after he faced an injury during the England series. Bumrah, on the other hand, will continue to play in the team as the second fast bowler along with Bhuvi.