The highly charged ‘second’ Indian team is another challenge for Pakistan

Ahmedabad: Though there is calm in the Indian and Pakistan dressing rooms, the atmosphere outside the Narendra Modi Stadium was highly charged on Friday.

A small crowd of young Indian fans were shouting slogans and weaving tricolour. Slogans like 'Bharat Mata ki Jay, Jai Shri Ram, and Vandematram were blowing in the air.

Inside the stadium, many were curious to know whether the Indian team was going to wear an orange jersey (it looks like Bhagwa) against Pakistan!

Earlier in the afternoon, Pakistan captain Babar Azam said his team was not under pressure. But a massive crowd of 1,30,000 cricket fans and such slogans by some of them could be annoying during the match.

These fans are likely to be India's second team, Babr Azam and his mates, to fight with.

Even while the Indian team was practising under floodlights in the evening, a small number of fans continuously kept shouting these slogans aggressively.

"Look, all the guys are quite used to playing in front of big crowds. So, like I just said, now it can only work in your favour." Rohit said when he was asked whether over 1,00,000 cheering fans pump more energy into the team.

"It cannot work against you. A lot of the guys on the team love a big crowd, the cheer, and the noise on the ground. So yeah, the boys enjoy it. Like I said, anywhere we go, people turn out in huge numbers. And that is good for the team and also good for the sport in general as well," he added.

On the pitch for this match, Rohit said, "I don't know, honestly. I don't know. I still haven't looked at the pitch yet, but we are ready for whatever combination we want to play. That's the challenge going forward for us as a team, depending on what kind of conditions we play in. If there is a change or two we need to make, we will be ready for that. And the guys have been informed very well in advance about this kind of change. So, I don't think there's going to be any issues with the players. But if the requirement is there for us to play three spinners, we will play three spinners."

Captain Rohit Sharma came into the press wearing orange; it looked like bhagwa. Following that, it is interesting to see if the Indian team is likely to shun its blue colour for this high-voltage match.