Team India arrives in Colombo for Asia Cup campaign

The Indian men's cricket team arrived in Colombo on Wednesday ahead of the Asia Cup 2023 campaign opener against Pakistan on September 2.

The Indian team arrived at Colombo airport on Wednesday and after boarding the bus, experienced batter Virat Kohli and allrounder Hardik Pandya were seen having a conversation.

While Indian skipper Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammad Shami and India head coach Rahul Dravid were seen chatting and sharing laughs while sitting in the bus.

In their campaign opener against Pakistan, the Indian team will be without star batter KL Rahul who is progressing well from the niggle he picked after recovering from his injury and will be under the National Cricket Academy (NCA) supervision till September 4 as confirmed by Dravid in a press conference.

"He (KL Rahul) had a good week with us, he is progressing really well on the route that we want to take, but he will be unavailable for the first part of the Kandy leg of the trip. The NCA will be looking after him while we are travelling. We will reassess him on the fourth (September 4) and we will take it from there. The signs are good and he is progressing really well," Dravid said.

Pakistan, India and Nepal are in Group A while Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka are in Group B. The tournament will follow a hybrid model with Pakistan hosting four matches across two venues and Sri Lanka hosting the remaining games.

The six group-stage matches will be followed by the Super Fours beginning September 6.

The final will be played by the top two teams at the end of the Super Fours on September 17 in Colombo.

Indian Squad: Rohit Sharma (captain), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma, Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya (vice-captain), Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Kuldeep Yadav, Prasidh Krishna.