On Saturday, September 2, 2019, during the high-stakes match between India and Pakistan that was part of the Asia Cup 2023, there was a lot of excitement and some exciting action on the pitch. The Men in Blue got off to a rough start in their tournament against their bitter rivals because their captain, Rohit Sharma, made the risky decision to bat first despite the cloudy weather after he won the toss.
However, this strategy ended up being counterproductive for the side since the Pakistani bowlers maintained a tight line and length, which made it impossible for the Indian top order to score easily. As a direct consequence of this, at one point they were in a precarious position with 66 runs for four wickets after 14.1 overs.
In the same line, it was anticipated that Rohit Sharma, the captain, would play his natural game and attempt to take more risks in an effort to score runs more quickly, all the while keeping in mind the DLS (Duckworth Louis Stern) technique factor, which was always a possibility given the unfavourable weather conditions. The fact that Sharma is unable to score regularly for Team India in one-day internationals has been the subject of a great deal of discussion. A further cause for concern in the lead-up to the intercontinental championship was the fact that Indian batters had a difficult time facing left-arm quicks.
The same thing was made clear when Shaheen Afridi gave Pakistan a fantastic start by “breathing fire” during his first burst of bowling, cleaning up Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. Despite the fact that Kohli has emerged from his slump, the controversy surrounding the captain’s inability to perform at the highest level remains a hot topic.
After the match between India and Pakistan in the Asia Cup 2023, Shoaib Akhtar, a former bowler for Pakistan, shared his opinions on the match. Akhtar is of the opinion that Rohit Sharma has not been able to read Afridi, particularly when the latter is bowling with the new ball. Notably, Sharma was only able to score 11 runs after being faced with 22 balls, and he was dismissed when Afridi’s blazing in-swinger went past the gate.
I seriously doubt that Rohit is able to read or comprehend anything Shaheen says. The sight of Rohit Sharma getting humiliated in such a way was upsetting; he is a much more skilled player than he appears here. On his YouTube channel, Akhtar made the comment that “Rohit can bat much better than this; I think he is worrying too much about it.”
It’s interesting to note that Shaheen Afridi delivered an inswinging yorker to Rohit Sharma during the Twenty20 World Cup in 2021, and Sharma castled it ahead. As a result, Sharma has struggled against left-arm quick bowlers like Afridi, who is widely regarded as one of the deadliest bowlers in the game of world cricket.
The Asia Cup 2023 match between India and Pakistan was called off after the first inning due to rain.
In reference to the match, when India had lost four wickets, the youthful wicketkeeper-batter Ishan Kishan and the all-rounder Hardik Pandya put their heads down to form an important partnership against Pakistan. The pair combined for an important 138-run stand for the fifth wicket, which allowed India to get back into the game. Throughout the process, both Kishan (82 runs off 81 balls) and Pandya (87 runs off 90 balls) scored fifty runs. Following that, pacer Naseem Shah raced through the Indian tail, which assisted Pakistan in limiting India to 266 runs. The persistent rain, on the other hand, caused the game to end with no winner or loser being declared.
The result of this match ensures that Pakistan will participate in the Super 4s phase of the Asia Cup 2023. Meanwhile, India’s team will try to beat Nepal in their next match by a large margin in order to maintain their position in the competition in terms of the net run rate factor (NRR), which might decide the winner of the competition in the days and weeks to come.
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