According to the weather forecasts
,90% or rain is expected in Melbourne on 23 October. The two sides meet in a blockbuster clash to open their Twenty20 World Cup campaigns at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday. About 100,000 fans have snapped up tickets for what is set to be a carnival atmosphere, although forecast rain could put a dampener on the party.
For October 23, the day of this match, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has predicted the weather to be, "Cloudy. Very high (95 per cent) chance of showers, most likely in the afternoon and evening. Winds southerly 15 to 25 km/h turning southeasterly during the evening."
There is a possibility that 4 to 10 mm of rainfall takes place on Sunday.
The match will be taking place in India at 1:30 PM, which translates to around 7 PM in Melbourne. In this case, the weather forecast on the match day looks like a scary sight for cricket lovers across India and Pakistan.
For the rest of the week, the possibility of showers will decline from October 26, Wednesday onwards, with 60 per cent (Medium) chance to showers on Wednesday and Thursday respectively.
At the ICC competition, India is in Group 2 with Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Africa and two qualifiers.
Following their October 23 encounter against Pakistan at the MCG, they will play on October 27, against a qualifier in Sydney, on October 30, against South Africa in Perth, on November 2, against Bangladesh in Adelaide, and on November 6. (vs qualifier in Melbourne).
India will begin the T20 World Cup in Australia as one of the favourites but captain Rohit Sharma says a lot of things will have to fall into place if they are to win the title.
Inaugural champions India failed to make the knockout stage at last year's tournament in the United Arab Emirates and have not won a World Cup since taking the 50-overs title on home soil in 2011.
Squad: Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Rishabh Pant, Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya, R Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammad Shami.
Standby Players: Mohammed Siraj, Shreyas Iyer, Ravi Bishnoi, Shardul Thakur.
*With inputs from agencies
