A poor display with the bat resulted in a five-wicket defeat for Pakistan against arch-rivals India in their Asia Cup 2022 opener. On Sunday, Indian all-rounder Hardik Pandya’s master class schooled the Babar Azam-led side in his own flamboyant style. Pakistan’s batters failed on the night as the Indian pacers exploited their weakness of short-pitched deliveries. A shambolic performance with the bat meant that Pakistan was bowled out for just 147 runs on the board.
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Though the target never seemed daunting, the Indian batters had to battle it out in the end. Pakistan’s second-fiddle pacers absolutely dominated India’s top order. Debutant Naseem Shah bowled KL Rahul for a duck before Virat Kohli edged one to third slip but was dropped. Haris Rauf and Shahnawaz Dahahni kept a tight rein on things.
However, a solid 5th wicket partnership between Ravindra Jadeja and Pandya took the game away from Pakistan. The situation worsened for the men in green as the pacers started cramping up on an excruciating and humid day. With the penalization for a slow over rate, Pakistan were forced to place only four fielders in the deep, instead of the usual five. Pandya exploited the situation and smashed three boundaries in the penultimate over against Haris Rauf, making the equation, just seven to get off the last over.
Without a fourth seam option, Pakistan had to rely on spinner Mohammed Nawaz to bowl the ultimate over. Hardik with veins of steel coolly smashed a flat six on the third ball over long-on to take India home.
Pakistan clearly missed their ace pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi who has been ruled out of the Asia Cup due to injury. Immediately after the match, a clip shared by Pakistan’s veteran all-rounder Shoaib Malik went viral on social media, where he can be seen watching the match live from the Dubai International stadium. In the short clip, Malik reckoned that Pakistan was missing one individual on the field and panned his camera sideways to reveal that it was none other than the injured pacer Shaheen who was accompanying him for the match.
“I think we are missing one person out there on the field right now”, Malik wrote in the caption.
– I think we are missing one person out there on the field right now… #PakVsInd #CricketTwitter pic.twitter.com/KPwJPj1ORW
— Shoaib Malik 🇵🇰 (@realshoaibmalik) August 28, 2022
Shaheen was forced to withdraw from the Asia Cup due to a knee injury sustained during the Test series in Sri Lanka. Notably, Shaheen led Pakistan to their first-ever victory over India in a world cup fixture last year in the ICC T20 World Cup, which was also held in the UAE. The Pakistan spearhead will be looking to recover and return for the next edition of the T20 World Cup slated for later this year.
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