India will attempt to win the Asia Cup title for a record eighth time when the tournament begins with the high-voltage India vs Pakistan contest on August 28.

Rohit Sharma and Co will lock horns against their arch-rivals for the first time since the 10-wicket drubbing in Dubai last year but according to Sharma things will be different this time. “Asia Cup is happening after a long time, but we played Pakistan last year in Dubai, where obviously the result did not go our way. But the Asia Cup is different now. The team is playing differently and has prepared differently, so a lot of things have changed from then. But for us, we need to assess the conditions, keep in mind the fact that we will be playing in 40-plus degrees. We need to assess all those factors and prepare accordingly,” he said while addressing the media on Wednesday.

My thought has always been that we will not focus on the opponent, but we will continue to play our game. We played against West Indies, England and in both cases, we did not think about who our opposition was, but we focused on things that we had to do as a team and what we had to achieve. Similarly, in the Asia Cup, our focus will be on what to achieve as a team and not think about who we are facing – be it Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka,” he said.