The two captains had downplayed the expectations going into an India-Pakistan cricket match, but the expressions after Wednesday’s clash in the Asia Cup clearly showed what it means to win a clash between the arch-rivals. While India skipper Rohit Sharma was delighted with the performance of his boys, Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed slammed the team’s poor show with the bat.
Rohit was thrilled with Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s early exploits as that left Pakistan struggling from the word go. Bhuvi was awarded the Man of the Match award for finishing with figures of 3/15 from his seven overs. If Bhuvneshwar did well at the top, it was Kedar Jadhav who spun a web on the middle-order with figures of 3/23 from his 9 overs.
“Right from the start we were quite disciplined. We wanted to learn from yesterday’s mistakes. It was a great game for the bowling unit – the spinners kept it tight and got the odd breakthrough but the wickets in the first couple of overs were very important.
“It was important to get early wickets because they’ve got some quality batting – we didn’t want to make things easy for them. We kept things on the stumps and we spoke about not giving Pakistan room,” said the skipper.
“When Babar [Azam] and Shoaib [Malik] were getting a partnership we discussed not to panic – and I was happy we didn’t. Kedar has been working on his bowling and he takes it seriously. It augurs well for the team – his overs in middle were very crucial, especially after Hardik’s injury (Pandya had to leave the field with a back complaint).”
{{/usCountry}}“When Babar [Azam] and Shoaib [Malik] were getting a partnership we discussed not to panic – and I was happy we didn’t. Kedar has been working on his bowling and he takes it seriously. It augurs well for the team – his overs in middle were very crucial, especially after Hardik’s injury (Pandya had to leave the field with a back complaint).”
{{/usCountry}}Pakistan skipper Sarfraz was clearly disappointed. “We didn’t have a good start, losing two wickets in the first five overs,” he said. “Then regular wickets meant we couldn’t come back into the game. You can say we batted poorly.
“The wickets were soft dismissals, except Babar’s. So we need to see how we play in the future. We did prepare for the two main spinners but got out to the third one (Jadhav). This is a good wake-up call before the super fours.”
(With ICC inputs)