India vs Pakistan Asia Cup 2022 : Some Improvements & Some Iteration Of Past Mistakes

 

Currently in the Asia Cup tournament, India has defeated Pakistan by 5 wickets. India and Pakistan are the fiercest opponents in the cricket world. Till date no cricket match has ever been and never could be as thrilling as India Pakistan match. If you look at the records of India vs Pakistan cricket matches, be it One Day International, 50 or 20 overs World Cup, or T20 format, India has usually been one step ahead of Pakistan.

As per the time table of Asia cup 2022 it was decided that india will face Pakistan on 28th august and after the announcement of match, discussions about match started. But most common question in all the discussions was whether shaheen afridi is a part of playing eleven or not? And it’s very natural if this question arises in anyone’s mind, the reason is he is the guy who with his staggering bowling despatched top batting order of indian cricket team to pavilion in T20 World Cup of 2021. But in present instances because of his knee injury shaheen afridi was now no longer a part of Pakistan’s squad for Asia cup 2022. So news of shaheen afridi provided some relief for indian cricket team and their supporters. But here’s the question, is shaheen afridi’s bowling so dangerous that entire indian batting order ought to be bothered about it? The answer is no, if you look at the Pakistan squad for T20 World Cup of 2021 it was full of new faces and indian team and team management didn’t had any knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses and for that reason Pakistan really took advantage of this surprise element and therefore they were able to defeat india so easily. But as said, “you can't use same trick twice” this time during the practice sessions indian team studied the playing style of pakistani players in detailed manner which helped them during the match. 

Match among india vs Pakistan was played on the Dubai International Cricket Stadium in Dubai. Yes, this is the same venue where Pakistan defeated India in the T20 World Cup 2021. If you remember the 2020 and 2021 IPL matches have been played in Dubai which benefited the Indian players, having played consecutive IPL seasons, the Dubai stadium is sort of a home ground for the Indian bowlers and indian bowlers used the IPL experience to their benefit in yesterday’s match. Until now there has been a notion that the strength of the Indian cricket team is their batting while the strength of Pakistan is their bowling, be it the 2021 T20 World Cup or the latest match in Asia Cup, both these matches have dispelled the misconception that one department of the team is their strength. 

In yesterday's match, India won the toss and elected to bowl first, and the Indian bowlers proved that their captain's decision was correct. In the first 6 overs of the Powerplay, both babar azam and fakar zaman were sent to pavilion by bhuvansehwar kumar and avesh khan respectively. This is the same Fakhar Zaman who scored 114 against India in the 2017 Champions Trophy final, while Babar Azam scored an unbeaten 68 against India in the 2021 T20 World Cup. The dismissal of these two important batsmen boosted the confidence of the Indian bowlers. Pakistani batsmen had to score runs by running between wickets because big square boundaries made it difficult for the batsmen to score runs through boundaries. As per the pitch report this pitch was not that much helpful for bowlers as it had pace but no swing and team batting in 2nd innings will have chances to win the match. 

After the loss of two important wickets, Mohammad Rizwan and Iftikhar Ahmed both put Pakistan in a strong position with a partnership of 45 runs in 38 balls. At 11.5 overs, Iftikhar Ahmed was going to be caught and bowled by Chahal, It was a low full toss delivery from Chahal, and Iftikhar slammed this straight to the bowler, but Chahal was in two minds, as he fumbled it a couple of times before putting the ball down on the floor. For that moment Iftikhar Ahmed breathed a sigh of relief. But Hardik Pandya got rid of Iftikhar in the very next over. Thus the partnership of Mohammad Rizwan and Iftikhar Ahmed was broken. India's grip on the game was further strengthened as india sent Pakistan’s set batsmen to pavilion. 

After Iftikhar Ahmed was shown the way to the pavilion, now the Indian bowlers started putting pressure on Mohammad Rizwan. If we observe Mohammad Rizwan's game we notice that though he scored 43 runs in 42 balls, his maximum runs were scored during middle overs. This indicates that Indian bowlers had restricted him well. Taking advantage of the pressure on Mohammad Rizwan, Hardik Pandya took the wicket of Mohammad Rizwan on a short ball in 14.1 overs and showed him the way to the pavilion. Using the same technique of short ball ploy hardik panda got rid off khushdil shah at 14.3 overs. In this way, Hardik Pandya used bounce to his advantage even though the ball was not swinging and took three important wickets of opening batsmen Mohammad Rizwan and two middle order batsmen Iftikhar Ahmed and Khushdil Shah to put India in a strong position again. 

Bhuvneshwar Kumar took the wickets of Asif Ali and Shadab Khan and Arshdeep Singh took the wicket of Mohammad Nawaz and sent Pakistan's batting order to the pavilion. After this the Indian bowlers started to put pressure on Pakistan's tail enders. Bhuvneshwar Kumar sent Naseem Shah to the pavilion to further increase the pressure on Pakistan. When bhuvaneshwar kumar took naseem shah’s wicket Pakistan had scored 128 runs for the loss of 9 wickets in 18.3 overs. Indian team and their supporters thought that this is the end for Pakistan. but here comes the twist, Harris Rauf and Shahnawaz Dahani came in to play, Rauf and Shahnawaz Dahani scored 19 runs in the last over and Pakistan went from 128 to 147. There was a time when everyone thought Pakistan's innings would end at 130 but Pakistan scored 19 more runs in arshdeep singh’s over he got wicket of Shahnawaz Dahani but considering the importance of death overs arshdeep’s over proved to be very expensive for india. 

As per pitch report predictions the team which will bat first can score minimum 160 runs but but India managed to restrict Pakistan to 147. Now coming back to the point of arshdeep’s expensive 20th over, Pakistan managed to score 19 runs in this over due to 2 reasons, first is poor bowling skills of arshdeep and second reason is slow over rate of the Indian bowlers. According to ICC rules an innings should be completed in 90 minutes which means any team has to bowl 20 overs in 90 minutes, as india failed to abide this rule the match referee imposed a penalty on India, under this penalty India was obliged to have 5 fielders in the 30 yard circle instead of 4 at the time of death overs. As there are less fielders outside 30 yards circle the indian fielders won’t be able to choke pakistani batsmen during death overs and Pakistan took advantage of this and scored 19 runs by playing big shots in the death overs. While the Indian fast bowlers took all the wickets in the first innings, the spinners were unable to pick up wickets due to lack of swing on the pitch but were able to restrict Pakistan's middle order from playing big shots. Therefore, it will not be wrong to say that the performance of the bowling department of Team India was good in this match. 

Now in order to win this match India wanted 148 runs in 20 overs, 148 runs in 20 overs was not a very difficult target. Rohit Sharma and K L rahul opened the games for india. K L rahul failed to open his account and was dismissed on a golden duck by Naseem shah. In order to dismiss K L rahul he used in swing and while trying to defend it rahul got clean bowled. There is a saying that “history repeats itself it doesn't need to be repeated” this is something like that. In the 2021 T20 World Cup, Rohit Sharma was similarly dismissed after 0.4 overs and India scored 151 runs at that time. So losing opener’s wickets while playing high-octane clash against Pakistan is a concern and team management really needs to work on this. 

Kohli came in to play 1 down after KL Rahul was dismissed. Kohli was rested during the recent West Indies tour. Several months after the IPL, Kohli was ready to play again. On the fourth ball of Naseem Shah's over, fakar zaman dropped kohli’s catch at second slip thus Virat Kohli was almost dismissed for a duck but was pretty lucky on that day. One thing to note here is that the ball on which KL Rahul got out was in-swing and the ball on which Kohli was almost dismissed was out swing, if Pakistani bowlers were able to swing the ball then why Indian bowlers weren’t able to do the same?and that’s a big question. 

While playing Shahnawaz Dahani's spell, Kohli was under pressure. With the loss of KL Rahul's wicket recently, Kohli and Rohit were scoring runs by running between the wickets without playing big shots. Kohli released the pressure on himself by hitting 6 in 3.5 overs. Kohli seemed to be under pressure while playing Shahnawaz Dahani's spell but he made it clear that he will play his natural game by playing some big shots. In short, the audience saw the earlier “Virat the run machine Kohli” during the second innings. During the match, when Kohli was at the non-striker's end, he kept a close eye on the bowler and observed the bowling style of that bowler, and this made it easier for Kohli to play big shots. 

On the other hand, Rohit Sharma was yet struggling to on the crease, by the end of 7 overs, Rohit Sharma had scored 5 runs in 14 balls. In 7.4 overs, Rohit Sharma released the pressure on himself by hitting a 6 off Mohammad Nawaz's spin spell. But on 7.6 overs while playing a big shot Rohit sharma got dismissed. Now there are two reasons for Rohit Sharma's dismissal, firstly, no matter how much a captain says that it's just a normal game for us, during the India Pakistan match, the pressure is still on that captain and it's very obvious. If we recall the 2017 Champions Trophy final match. The same pressure was felt on Kohli in 2017 and it affected his performance. In the 2017 Champions Trophy final match when India needed 339 runs in 50 overs, in such an important match, Kohli could only score 5 runs in 9 balls, his body language in that match was very passive and defensive. Second reason, the same mistake made by Pakistani opener Mohammad Rizwan was made by Rohit Sharma, Rizwan didn't score runs in 3 overs out of 6 overs of powerplay and pressure of dot balls mounted on rizwan and he went for big shots and lost his wicket and that's what happened to Rohit Sharma. 

Mohammad Nawaz provoked both Rohit Sharma and then Virat Kohli to play big shots and both threw away their wickets by playing the wrong shots. Babar Azam's game plan was successful here, Babar Azam played spinners from both ends to send India's top order batsmen to the pavilion. Both Rohit Sharma and virat kohli put a partnership of 49 runs in 46 balls before returning to pavilion. Now Ravindra Jadeja and Surya Kumar Yadav came to play in the middle overs. Ravindra Jadeja and Surya Kumar Yadav both started slowly and tried to give India a stable partnership. But unfortunately Surya Kumar Yadav was dismissed for 18 runs in 14.2 overs. Thus Pakistan broke India's second partnership. Ravindra Jadeja and Surya Kumar Yadav both shared a partnership of 36 runs in 31 balls. 

Hardik Pandya came to complete the remaining target. Hardik Pandya and Jadeja kept the strike rotating with the help of running between the wickets. Even both hardik and jadeja were trying to play big grounded shots they were unable to score runs due to long square boundaries and tight fielding by pakistani players. Naseem Shah was injured in the 18th over and Pakistan's worries increased, but despite the injury Naseem Shah completed his over. Naseem Shah trapped jadeja in front of the wickets, and it became a tense situation. The umpire adjudged Jadeja out lbw, but the Indian all-rounder went for a review and luckily survived it as well because the ball was pitched marginally outside the leg-stump. there was a collective sigh of relief in the Indian camp when the umpire's decision was overturned. Thus this over was a first game changer moment. 

Hardik Pandya hit three consecutive 4s in the 19th over and started putting pressure on Pakistan. By the end of the 19th over, Ravindra Jadeja and Hardik Pandya had made a partnership of 52 runs in 29 balls. But Pakistan made the same mistake of slow over rate in the death overs, and now due to the penalty, Pakistan was forced to keep 5 fielders instead of 4 in the 30 yard circle during the death overs. On the very first ball of the 20th over, Mohammad Nawaz clean bowled Ravindra Jadeja and showed that Pakistan is still in the game. Hardik Pandya took advantage of the penalty given to Pakistan and in 19.4 overs, Hardik Pandya hit 6 and won the match for India.

While watching this Asia Cup match of 2022, many things from Champions Trophy Final 2017 and T20 World Cup 2021 were seen again, for example Hardik Pandya scored 76 runs in 43 balls in Champions Trophy Final 2017, he again proved to be a dependable player in crucial match against Pakistan in Asia cup 2022. Thus Hardik Pandya gave the message to the team management that I can win the match by staying in the match till the end. In cricket while playing a high pressure game, either your performance is bad or your best talent comes out. So moral of the story is you need to play anchored innings while playing high pressure game by keeping your cool. India managed to win this game on basis of strong partnerships and anchored innings played by Rohit-Virat, Jadeja-Surya, and Jadeja-Pandya. If you look closely at this match, both the teams have committed exactly the same mistakes, Chahal dropped Iftikhar Ahmed catch where as Fakhar Zaman dropped Virat Kohli's catch, both the teams committed the mistake of slow over rate and this mistake proved to be expensive for both teams in death overs, the openers of both the teams ie Mohammad Rizwan and Rohit Sharma played a lot of dot balls in the Powerplay overs and failed to provide a good start to their respective teams. 

So in this match of Asia Cup 2022, India came up with improvised game plan while playing against Pakistan which resulted in its victory But at the same time, this match witnessed a repitition of the mistakes made by india in the 2017 Champions Trophy and the 2021 T20 World Cup as well as repitition of some mistakes made by both teams during the present day game of Asia Cup 2022 

© Vedang Deshpande

Dated 30th August 2022