COLOMBO: India captain Rohit Sharma played down hype around Saturday’s Asia Cup blockbuster against Pakistan, saying their focus is on using the tournament to fine-tune their preparations for the home World Cup later this year. The next round of cricket’s most emotionally charged rivalry will take place in Pallekele between the arch-rivals, who play each other only in multi-team events thanks to their soured political relations. They could face each other up to three times in two weeks during the course of the tournament, including in the Sept. 17 final, and Rohit appeared determined not to get carried away by emotion. “Rivalry is there for people to talk about. For us, we don’t want to look into all those things,” the opener deadpanned in the pre-match press conference on Friday. “What we, as Team India, want to focus on is we have an opposition to play tomorrow, how we can perform (well)… rather than looking at all sorts of other things, which eventually is not going to help you. “What is going to help us is – keep doing the right things on the pitch and make the right decisions that take us forward as a team.” The six-team tournament assumes more importance for India as they chase their first global title in more than a decade at the home World Cup in October-November. “We’re here to tick a lot of boxes,” said Rohit. “When we finish the tournament, hopefully we can achieve that and go into the next one and half months of the World Cup.” The match could prove a battle between India’s formidable batting and Pakistan’s fiery pace attack led by Shaheen Afridi. “They are an excellent side, they have performed really well in the last few years — be it in the T20 World Cup or in the 50-overs format,” Rohit said of Pakistan, currently the top-ranked one-day team in the world. “You don’t just become the number one side like that, it takes lot of hard work. They have been playing as a unit and it would be a great challenge for us facing them. “We have prepared well, hopefully we can execute our plans well tomorrow.” A carefully devised schedule of matches for the 2023 Asia Cup will ensure that India and Pakistan will not play against each other in their respective countries, regardless of how they perform in the group stages of the six-team tournament. A total of 13 matches will be played in the tournament leading up to the final which is scheduled for Colombo on September 17. The six teams have been drawn in two groups with Pakistan, India and Nepal who qualified for the Asia Cup by defeating UAE in the final of the ACC men’s premier cup in Kathmandu in May. Group B includes Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. According to the format presented by the PCB in conjunction with the ACC, the top two teams from each group will qualify for the Super Four stage with the top two teams in this phase advancing to the final. The draft schedule also indicates that irrespective of where they finish in the first round, Pakistan will remain A1 and India A2 while Sri Lanka will be B1 and Bangladesh B2. In the event of Nepal and Afghanistan qualifying for the Super Four stage, they will claim the slot of the team that has been knocked out — Pakistan or India in Group A and Sri Lanka or Bangladesh in Group B. Should Pakistan and India advance to the Super Four stage, they will once again face-off in Kandy on September 10. Five of the teams barring Nepal are using the tournament as a prep for the 13th edition of the ICC’s ODI World Cup which will be held in India. The tournament will begin on October 5. As the Asia Cup hosts Pakistan will stage five matches, three in Lahore and one in Multan.