Asia Cup: No Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant in; India to bat

Hardik Pandya has been rested for India's Asia Cup game against Hong Kong at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.

Considering "how important" is Hardik for India, captain Rohit Sharma said the all-rounder was rested on Wednesday. Hardik was the player of the match for his all-round performance during India's five-wicket victory over Pakistan on Sunday.

Hardik picked up three wickets and finished with figures of 3 for 25 in his quota of four overs. He followed that with a match-winning 33 off 17 deliveries, including four boundaries and a six, as India sealed their chase of 148 in 19.4 overs with five wickets to spare.

Hong Kong skipper Nizakat Khan won the toss and asked India to bat first.

"We were going to bowl first as well. Looks like an even covering of grass and we need to bat well to get to a good score. We just want to continue to do what we are doing as a team. We don't want to look at the opposition and play good and hard cricket. We need to do our basics right, which is what got us a victory against Pakistan. One change: Hardik is rested considering how important he is for us, Pant comes in," Rohit said at the toss.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong skipper Nizakat said," We are going to bowl first. In Oman, we chased down well and that is what we are looking to do. The last time we played India, it was a good game and we know we did some mistakes and want to make sure we capitalize on that. We have the same team we played against UAE."

India vs Hong Kong: Playing XIs

Hong Kong XI: Nizakat Khan(c), Yasim Murtaza, Babar Hayat, Kinchit Shah, Aizaz Khan, Scott McKechnie(w), Zeeshan Ali, Haroon Arshad, Ehsan Khan, Ayush Shukla, Mohammad Ghazanfar

India XI: Rohit Sharma(c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja, Dinesh Karthik(w), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Avesh Khan, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh