India take on Bangladesh in the Asia Cup 2016 final tonight. Both the team has been in fantastic form in the tournament, With India winning all its matches in the group stage and Bangladesh winning 3 of their matches (there only loss came against India). The match is set to be a very competitive affair between the teams, Bangladesh would be relying on its pace attack while India would be relying on its strong batting lineup.

Here is what the players had to say in yesterday’s press conference

Yuvraj Singh 

It’s my responsibility to go and change the game for the team

Tamim Iqbal

We defeated them in ODI’s last year and there is no reason we can’t do that in T20 this year

MS Dhoni

To beat a home team is always difficult. Also Bangladesh has improved a lot over the year’s

Meanwhile the latest news coming from the stadium is not at all good Heavy rains has started in Mirpur and the covers are on the field.

Finnaly some good news coming from Mirpur as the rain has finally stopped

https://twitter.com/NiazPukhtoon/status/706471477776879617

The cut off time for a 5 over game between the two finalist nations is 10:15pm IST. And if play does not start by then the trophy would be shared between the two teams as there is no reserve day for the play.

The next update is scheduled at 8:00 PM IST , we would keep you updated with any news that occurs then.

Latest update coming from the stadium is a music to the ears of the fan. The rains had stopped since a while ago and the covers are finally off, the groundsmen are working really hard to get the ground ready for the match

The match is finally gonna start at 9.00 PM IST and the match has been reduced to 15 overs a side, a bowler can bowl a maximum of 3 overs and the innings break has been reduced to 10 minutes

India has won the toss and elected to Bowl first. Ms Dhoni had elected to bowl first a wise decision considering the moisture that would be present in the pitch due to the rains.

Here’s what the two captains had to say after the toss

MS Dhoni 

We will bowl first. It’s a shortened game. So I feel it is a bit of an advantage batting second because it is a 15-over game.

Mortaza

We wanted to field as well, but now we don’t have any choice, we need to bat well. The ball can do its bit early on, but we will have to deal with the swing in the first 2-3 overs. The crowd has been supporting us. We have two changes, Nasir Hossain and Abu Haider Rony are in.

Bangladesh (Playing XI): Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Sabbir Rahman, Mushfiqur Rahim(w), Shakib Al Hasan, Mahmudullah, Nasir Hossain, Mashrafe Mortaza(c), Abu Hider, Al-Amin Hossain, Taskin Ahmed.

India (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni(w/c), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ashish Nehra, Jasprit Bumrah.

 

https://twitter.com/jha_siddhus94/status/706513667034996736

 

So finally the first innings has come to conclusion with Bangladesh scoring 120/5 in 15th overs thanks to a blinder of a innings from Mahmuddulah  who scored 33 of just 13 ball. Ashwin and Bumrah were the pick of indian bowlers while both pandya and nehra had a game to forget.

So India requires 121 to win the asia cup.