Asia Cup: India vs Pakistan dream maiden final threatens to sweep cricket off the table due to swirling undercurrents

It has taken India and Pakistan 41 years to set up a date in the final of the Asia Cup. Expect a lot of drama when the game begins on Sunday in Dubai.

For all their continental muscle-flexing, it has taken India and Pakistan 41 years to set up a date in the final of the Asia Cup. In a tournament played against an uneasy backdrop of posturing and one-upmanship, on-field action has been overshadowed by off-field developments that have brought geopolitical tensions into sharp focus and intensified the pressure and unreasonable weight of expectations on players from both teams.

India and Pakistan will play each other for the first time in an Asia Cup final. (Creimas/Asian Cricket Council)

Not even Pakistan will contest the reality that India have comfortably been the strongest team of the tournament. Their perfect 6-0 record amply illustrates their dominance, even if they chose the scenic route home against Sri Lanka on Friday night. They have swatted Pakistan aside on two successive Sundays at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, by seven and six wickets respectively. Ominously for their opponents, India have yet to produce the perfect, complete game.

Heavily reliant on the exuberant stroke-making at the top of the tree of Abhishek Sharma and the magic of left-arm spinner Varun Chakravarthy, India have lived up to their status as the defending World Cup champions and the top-ranked T20I side in the universe. Despite being short of their best – some of it certainly has to do with not having played together for seven months before the start of this competition – they have found ways to breach the tape whenever they have been pushed into a corner, which, truth to tell, hasn’t been that often. Sri Lanka were within one run of arresting a seven-match winning streak, but like champion sides invariably do, India dug deep and came up trumps even though both their frontline pacers were unavailable and there was a touch of the ragged to the reserve quicks.

Pakistan have historically been a bowling-heavy outfit, and it’s no different this time. Shaheen Shah Afridi has shown signs of returning to his best at the tournament's climax, Haris Rauf is starting to channel his angst constructively, and spinners Abrar Ahmed and Saim Ayub, who have had four ducks in six innings, have controlled the middle overs quite well against most teams. But India aren’t ‘most teams’; despite everything that’s gone on around them, including a visit for under-achieving skipper Suryakumar Yadav to match referee Richie Richardson’s chamber for a hearing into a code of conduct breach of which he has been found guilty, the Indians have retained concentration, invoking the tunnel vision that has helped them ignore events beyond their control.

The tension in the air has been heavy from the time Suryakumar and then his colleagues opted not to shake hands with Salman Agha and the rest of the Pakistan squad. Incensed by the snub, Pakistan’s petulance manifested itself in an empty boycott threat from which they hastily climbed down, a delayed start to their contest against UAE after the ICC threw out their demand to oust referee Andy Pycroft from the competition, and a series of provocative words and gestures that have taken Sahibzada Farhan (not guilty) and Rauf (very guilty) to a meeting with Pycroft. Where India have been quietly dignified, Pakistan have opted for the petty and the ungainly – on and off the field, both.

Head coach Gautam Gambhir will have impressed upon his charges – not that he needed to -- the imperativeness of forgetting the two previous results and approaching the final with a clean slate. Perhaps that will work to Suryakumar and Shubman Gill’s advantage. Despite being involved in opening partnerships of 105 and 77 with Abhishek, India’s vice-captain has only 115 runs in six innings. Suryakumar’s predicament is direr – a frugal 71 tournament runs, 47 of those in a single knock. The skipper and his deputy are due a score. What better time to get in the final and complement, maybe even supplant, Abhishek, who has three straight half-centuries and a record-equalling seven consecutive 30-plus knocks in T20Is.

Pakistan’s batting has been their Achilles’ heel. Even against the UAE and Oman, they weren’t at their fiercest best. Bangladesh had them on the mat at 46 for five in a virtual semifinal before allowing them to wriggle away to a match-winning tally. Apart from Farhan (160 runs) and to a lesser extent Fakhar Zaman, the batting has struggled for creativity and flair; Agha’s poor form (64 runs in six innings) has weighed heavily on his colleagues, of whom Afridi and Mohammad Nawaz, whose left-arm spin has been sparingly used, have been honourable late-order exceptions.

Sport comes with no guarantees. Recent form is no insurance against a bad day in the office – India can’t afford to drop four catches, like they did last Sunday against the same rivals – but if Suryakumar’s warriors sing from the same hymn sheet of the last six games, they will be on to a good thing. Pakistan’s mission will be to tear up that hymn sheet. The Indian captain’s justified ‘What rivalry?’ jibe has struck a chord. Perhaps, it will shake them out of their torpor. It must, for them to have any chance.