The Asia Cup 2023 began with the match between Pakistan and Nepal in Multan on Wednesday. Babar Azam received the toss and elected to bat towards Nepal within the Asia Cup 2023 opener on the Multan Cricket Stadium on Wednesday.  Pakistan crew will likely be assured to kick off their Asia Cup marketing campaign with a victory towards Nepal with the house crowd backing them. While Asia Cup debutant Nepal could be backing themselves to drag off an upset of their first ODI encounter towards Pakistan.

However, the beginning of the match noticed low attendance, which shocked these watching it on tv.

Not gonna lie however my college cricket match had extra viewers than this one. #PAKvsNEP pic.twitter.com/UsSSVfYtqC

— R A T N I S H (@LoyalSachinFan) August 30, 2023

#PAKvsNEP
Craze of cricket in Pakistan pic.twitter.com/YIW85KWDYk

— Rahul (@rahul_vnr32) August 30, 2023

Crazy Crowd in #PAKvsNEP Game
And they wished Asia cup to occur in Pakistan, thank god it received Shifted in srilanka! pic.twitter.com/h0KTRZuZym

— (@45Fan_Prathmesh) August 30, 2023

An entire empty Stadium in Multan. pic.twitter.com/OD0CUMJ4YF

— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) August 30, 2023

But later, sizeable variety of followers did come to the bottom.

Fans have began to collect to observe Pakistan’s match in Multan. pic.twitter.com/PPKFfRobwG

— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) August 30, 2023

Pakistan skipper Babar Azam mentioned on the time of toss, “We will bat first, pitch looks very dry and shiny. No reason to name the XI earlier, we wanted to give confidence to our team. To be honest, being the top-ranked team brings a good kind of pressure, we’ll try to enjoy and do our best.”

Nepal skipper Rohit Paudel mentioned on the time of toss, “Everyone is very happy, it is our first game in the Asia Cup. Everyone in Nepal is really excited for this game. Most of the things here are very similar to Nepal, looks like a beautiful wicket to bat on.”

Pakistan (Playing XI): Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Babar Azam(c), Mohammad Rizwan(w), Agha Salman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf

Nepal (Playing XI): Kushal Bhurtel, Aasif Sheikh(w), Rohit Paudel(c), Aarif Sheikh, Kushal Malla, Dipendra Singh Airee, Gulsan Jha, Sompal Kami, Karan KC, Sandeep Lamichhane, Lalit Rajbanshi.

With ANI inputs