Asia Cup 2025 Shock: IND vs PAK Without Virat-Rohit and Babar-Rizwan – Who Holds the Edge?

The much-anticipated Asia Cup 2025 is just around the corner, and we are receiving new updates every day leading up to the tournament. However, the Ind vs Pak contest is still making most of the headlines. 

This would be the first clash between India and Pakistan where the two teams might bout without the top two players of the respective sides. India would jump in without its T20 World Cup-winning captain Rohit Sharma and run machine Virat Kohli. Pakistan, on the other hand, would be playing without the services of Babar Azam and the former captain Mohammad Rizwan. 

Impact On India

Team India is the defending Asia Cup champions and also the defending T20 World Cup Champions. Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have played a massive role in winning those titles, and now India finds themselves without the two giants of modern-day cricket for the first time in a major tournament. 

Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma announced their retirement from T20I cricket just on the day India became the World T20 Champions. Ever since then, India have played without the RO-KO factor and have performed well. India, under the leadership of Surya Kumar Yadav, dominated Bangladesh by 3-0, South Africa by 3-1 (in South Africa), and England by a 4-1 series win. 

This shows and strengthens the idea that India can play three different formats of cricket with three different teams at the same time and still have the capability of winning each format. 

Impact on Pakistan

After an early exit from the ICC T20 World Cup 2024, the Pakistan Cricket Board went forward with Rizwan as their captain, but it only lasted for three series. In the year 2025, starting with the New Zealand tour, the PCB moved on from Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan and cited that they are just rested, but we never saw them back in action in the T20I format. 

Pakistan have played four T20I series without their "best batter Babar" and former skipper Rizwan and have performed average. They faced defeat against Bangladesh (in Bangladesh) and New Zealand (in New Zealand) and won against Zimbabwe and West Indies. 

IND vs PAK: Who Holds the Edge in the Asia Cup 2025

India vs Pakistan has always been a contest of pressure. If you absorb the pressure well enough, you are inching closer to the win! India and Pakistan will face off on 14th September in Dubai, and we already have the squads of both nations for the tournament. 

Surya Kumar Yadav will spearhead the Indian team, while Agha Salman is named as Pakistan's captain. Both squads are rock-solid on paper.

India Squad: Suryakumar Yadav (C), Shubman Gill (VC), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakaravarthy, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Sanju Samson (wk), Harshit Rana, and Rinku Singh.
Reserve players: Prasidh Krishna, Washington Sundar, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel and Yashasvi Jaiswal.

Pakistan Squad: Salman Ali Agha (c), Abrar Ahmed, Faheem Ashraf, Fakhar Zaman, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Hasan Nawaz, Hussain Talat, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Haris (wk), Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Waseem Jnr, Sahibzada Farhan, Saim Ayub, Salman Mirza, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Sufyan Moqim.

On man-to-man marking, stats, and player quality, the Indian team still looks far ahead of Pakistan's squad. Imagine a team having Yashasvi Jaiswal in their reserve player, then what quality would it contain in their starting 11? 

Bowling would be Pakistan's plus in the contest again, but India is a better side on paper and on the ground in this tournament as well.