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The Asia cup sees its first big gun shoot-out today as India face the old enemy Pakistan at Karachi .

India will be relishing playing here again. Its 25 years since they lost to Pakistan at this venue and their last 3 games here has seen them win convincingly after scores of 266-6, 349-7 and 287-2.

The Indian batting line-up is now even stronger then it was for those games and I fully expect them to turn it on again today.

Both teams have been in action in last couple of days against the minnows from Hong Kong . Though it would be a mistake to put too much emphasis on the results, its still interesting that India dominated their match and won by the 2 nd highest biggest winning margin ever of 256 runs, whilst Pakistan at one stage were tottering at 161-7 before the tail came to the rescue.

Today's game is in effect a dead rubber with both teams through to the round robin stage, but there is no such thing as a dead game when it's an India / Pakistan match. Both teams will be keen to take momentum and the psychological advantage into their next match and so I expect yet another fiercely contested game.

India rested Yuvraj Singh, Ishant Sharma and Irfan Pathan for the Hong Kong game, but all three will be back for this one. Pathan and Yuvraj have enjoyed great success against Pakistan recently and they, along with the rest of the formidable batting line-up will adore the batters dream of a pitch at Karachi .

India bowling attack of Sharma, RP Singh, Kumar, Pathan and Chawla has balance and variety and that is going to be key on this pitch.

Pakistan looks like sticking with the same team, but may promote Afridi to open the innings with Salman Butt. Their main worry will be the inconsistent form of the top order and they know that while they got away with slipping to 161-7 against Hong Kong, they will not get away with it against India .

Their bowling again looks strong on paper with Tanvir and Gul at the forefront, but this pitch at Karachi is not usually suited to pace bowling and I think the biggest threat to India will come from the spin of Afridi and Malik.

India has won the vast majority of recent meetings and I was expecting a price of around 1.50 at most today.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that 1.65 is on offer and I consider this to be great value.

At sub 1.50 I would have suggested a no bet game, but I cannot resist this 1.65 on this Indian batting line-up on this Karachi track.

Therefore my suggested bet for this match is:

BACK India for 4 points @ 1.65 that is generally available.