Asia Cup 2018: Discussion points as India win against Pakistan

By Rajdeep Saha

Sep 20, 2018

11:52 am

What's the story

All-round India beat Pakistan, in a rather one-sided battle, in the ongoing Asia Cup 2018.

India won by eight wickets to show their dominance over their arch-rivals and improve their head-to-head record, in the Asia Cup, to 7-5.

Batting first, Pakistan managed a paltry score of 162 runs, and India chased down the target in style.

Here are the key discussion points.

Bhuvi

Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who looked rusty against Hong Kong, was supreme atop and used the short ball well.

He cramped the left-handed batsmen for space, as their fancy shots resulted in them getting dismissed.

This helped India get the momentum and credit to Jasprit Bumrah as well, for bowling those dot balls upfront.

Bhuvi finished with three wickets in the match.

Batting

Imam-ul-Haq is often seen playing with a calm head but yesterday he charged down against Bhuvi and paid the price.

Sarfraz Ahmed needed to take the stock of the situation and rotate strike, but went for an expensive heave that left Pakistan in trouble.

Pakistan depend on their top 3 for a solid start and once they were dismissed, the weak middle-order got exposed.

Duo

Ambati Rayudu and Kedar Jadhav continued their impressive show and carried from where they left against Hong Kong.

India's middle order spots are up for grabs and at the moment, the two comeback men are justifying their call-up.

Kedar was superb with figures of 3/23 and didn't set a foot wrong.

Rayudu got his experience talking and made sure he stayed till the end.

INDVPAK

Before the game, the build-up was about the battle between Indian batsmen and Pakistan bowlers.

And this time, the Indian batting unit never allowed Pakistani pacers to settle down.

The opening duo of Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan came out strong and blunted the opposition pace attack.

Pakistani pacers picked just a solitary wicket between themselves and weren't on the money from the start.