Desk Report:
No, there was no hint of rivalry. To be more specific, Pakistan did not get a chance in front of India. Suryakumar Yadav’s team put a foot in the Asia Cup Super Four by defeating them by 7 wickets in Dubai. They crossed the target of 128 runs with 25 balls in hand.
India’s two openers Abhishek Sharma and Shubman Gill started the chase aggressively at the Dubai International Stadium. They made it easy. Although neither of them could play a big innings.
Gill (10) was stumped by a carrom ball from Sayem Ayub. Before Abhishek was out, he played 31 runs in 13 balls with 4 fours and 2 sixes. Suryak took the rest of the way with Tilak Verma (31) and Shivam Dubey (10*) Dubey. He drew the seal of victory by hitting a six off the fifth ball of Sufian Mukim in the 16th over. He finished the innings unbeaten on 47 runs off 37 balls with 5 fours and 1 six.
Earlier, Pakistan forgot about batting after winning the toss. Although they started the innings with a wide, Hardik Pandya took the wicket with the first legal ball. While hitting his outswing delivery, Pakistan opener Sayem Ayub made Jasprit Bumrah practice catching. Earlier, he gave a golden duck in the match against Oman.
The opposite scene was seen in the next over. This time Pandya took the catch off Bumrah. Mohammad Haris returned to the dressing room, scoring 3 runs off 5 balls.
Pakistan did not have the courage to overcome this initial shock. However, what Sahibzada Farhan did was surprising. He hit Bumrah for a six. Not once, not twice; no Pakistani batter had been able to hit Bumrah for a six before in international cricket. Sahibzada made up for that sorrow after waiting for 400 balls. But neither he nor any other batsman could be more aggressive later.
After the powerplay, the Indian spinners kept Pakistan’s runs at bay. In the eighth over, Axar Patel returned Fakhar Zaman (17). In the next over, he made captain Salman Ali Agha a victim. Salman scored only 3 runs in 12 balls. In the first 10 overs, Pakistan played 31 dots. They could not score more than 49 runs.
In the remaining 10 overs, Pakistan could not stand Kuldeep’s tricks. In the 13th over, the left-arm spinner raised the possibility of a hat-trick by dismissing Hasan Nawaz and Mohammad Nawaz in two consecutive balls. Farhan, who was calm, was also forced to give in to him later. The opener returned to the dressing room with 40 runs off 44 balls, including 1 six and 3 fours.
In the end, the runs crossed three figures thanks to the efforts of Shaheen Shah Afridi and Sufian Mukim. It was as if he was showing the main batsmen how to bat. Mukim was stopped for 10 runs off 6 balls. However, Shaheen remained unbeaten on 33 runs off 16 balls with 4 sixes. Pakistan avoided the shame of being all out in his innings.
Kuldeep took the highest wicket for India, taking 3 wickets for 18 runs in 4 overs. In addition, Bumrah and Akshar took two wickets each. Pandya and Varun Chakraborty took one wicket each.
