The Indian cricket team managed to win its second ODI match in Asia Cup which was against Nepal by 10 wickets and now it will be playing in the Super Four stage. India will be playing three matches in the next stage and one of them will be against arch-rivals Pakistan and there is a possibility that India and Pakistan may again face each other in the finals of the tournament.
The Indian batters seem to have problems in facing the Pakistan speedstars, especially the left-handed pacer, Shaheen Shah Afridi. The Pakistani left-handed pacer dismissed the Indian senior batters, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli and he ended the match with wonderful figures of 4/35. There was a time when India was reeling at the score of 66/4 and it was brilliant and sensible batting by Ishan Kishan and Hardik Pandya which brought the Indian team back on track.
It has become a common perception that Indian batters are not able to play Pakistani pacers in a proper manner but India’s batting coach Vikram Rathour doesn’t agree to it as he said in a press conference, “Of course, they are a good bowling attack. The conditions were different in the game against Pakistan. The wicket was doing something when the new ball was into the play and there was a rain interruption as well which the batters usually don’t like to have. But we managed to recover after losing early wickets, which is a good sign.”
He further said, “Aisa kuch nahi hai ki khel nahi sakte hain (It’s nothing like that we can’t play them). They have a good bowling attack and on certain days, they will have the edge. But the day we get a good start, our batters are also capable of putting up a big score.”
Let’s see what happens in the next match against Pakistan.