Toss Update: USA Wins Toss, Opts to Bowl First vs Pakistan
The coin has landed at the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) in Colombo for this high-stakes T20 World Cup 2026 clash. Monank Patel has won the toss and elected to bowl first, citing the helpful conditions for his seamers.
Captain’s Words
“We’re going to bowl first. It looks like a good batting track and there’s a consistent breeze here, so once we know the target, it will be easy for us to chase it down. We have two changes today. Ali Khan is still injured, so Ehsan Adil comes in place of him. Saiteja Mukkamalla misses out and Shayan Jahangir comes in. We played a lot of good cricket in the opening game and there were a lot of positives. One thing we discussed is that to win against top teams, it’s important to perform with both bat and ball. Everyone gave their full effort in our last meeting with Pakistan, and we want to take that confidence and motivation into today’s game.” – Monank Patel
We have got one chance. Usman Tariq is playing. Salman Mirza is unfortunately missing out. We wanted to give Usman a chance. I think he’s a match-winner and a trump card for us, so we want to use him. I think we all know there are things we need to improve. We’ve sat down and talked about that, and I’m hoping we’ll be much better today. We’ve been playing really good cricket over the last few months, and we just want to continue playing good cricket every single day. – Salman Ali Agha
Official Playing XIs
Pakistan (Playing XI): Saim Ayub, Sahibzada Farhan, Salman Agha(c), Babar Azam, Usman Khan(w), Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Faheem Ashraf, Shaheen Afridi, Usman Tariq, Abrar Ahmed
United States of America (Playing XI): Andries Gous(w), Shayan Jahangir, Monank Patel(c), Milind Kumar, Sanjay Krishnamurthi, Shubham Ranjane, Harmeet Singh, Mohammad Mohsin, Shadley van Schalkwyk, Ehsan Adil, Saurabh Netravalkar
