India vs Hong Kong, Asia Cup 2022 Highlights: IND beat HK by 40 runs, qualify for Super Four

Well it's not dangerman Babar Hayat but that is quite something. Some suicidal running from Nizakat, has to be said, he came down two steps off a free hit delivery from Arshdeep. It went to Jadeja at point from where he sent a bullet of a delivery. Nizakat could not get back in time and walks back visibly disappointed, as you would expect. 

Nizakat Khan run out (Jadeja) 10 (12), Hong Kong 51/2 off 6 overs 

Good recovery from Hong King with Babar Hayat scoring 19 off 12 balls. He has hit two sixes so far, one off Bhuvneshwar in the 3rd over and one off Avesh in the fifth.  

Bouncer does the trick, as it did against Pakistan in the last match. Murtaza tries a pull, miscues it completely and Avesh takes a good catch tumbling back at fine leg. 

Murtaza c Avesh Khan b Arshdeep Singh 9 (9), Hong Kong 12/1 in 2 overs

Bhuvneshwar bowls the first over, two runs off the second ball, singles off the third and last balls. 

“I haven't practiced those strokes, but I used to play rubber ball cricket with my friends when I was a kid and that is where these shots come from. The pitch was a little sticky before. Before I got out to bat, I spoke to Rohit and Rishabh and told them that I would try to take the tempo up and look for 170-175. I think we have a good score on this wicket.”

98-run stand between Kohli and SKY off just 42 balls. Suryakumar is unbeaten on 68 off just 26 deliveries (!!!!), having hit six fours and as many sixes. He has a strike rate of 261.53. Kohli, meanwhile, is unbeaten on 59 off 44, with one four and three sixes. 

Not quite six sixes, SKY was thinking that the way he reacts after missing that fourth ball. But then he gets a slow length delivery and pulls that in front square.  

Six sixes anyone? Slow ball on off, Yadav sends it sailing over the bowler's head, 18 off the first three balls!

BACK TO BACK SIXES OFF THE FRIST TWO BALLS AND SKY CELEBRATES! He has got there in just 22 balls, strike rate of 250!!!!

Partnership of 72 off 39 balls between Kohli and SKY. SKY is on strike. Haroon Arshad bowling the last over.  

He gets there in 40 balls. He equals Rohit's tally and celebrates with a slight lift of the bat. He has got his eye on a big one here, not too many deliveries left for a century but this has been a sensational knock. 

Partnership of 44 off just 24 and yet, India would want this to go faster. Rahul, has done no favours for his prospects here, Kohli and SKY are batting like a dream now. 

Fourth four in eight deliveries. Slashes at a wide delivery for four. Then he scoops the next ball over the wicketkeeper's head for a six. That is just magnificent batting. 

Full on middle from Aizaz, Kohli skips down the ground and lofts the ball downtown. What an innings the former India captain is playing here. 

Well Rahul goes for a below 100-strike rate innings that lasted 6 overs, SKY hits fours off the first two balls he faced. Both sweep shots of the highest calibre. 

Out for a 39-ball 36. KL Rahul certainly not having the best of times here at the Asia Cup. Rahul tries to sweep a delivery outside off, takes the edge and the keeper doesn't drop the ball. 

Rahul c McKechnie b Mohammad Ghazanfar 36 (39), India 94/2 in 13 overs

Kohli charges down right after the drinks break so that could be a messages passed down. Mohammad Ghazanfar tosses up around off and Kohli hits it straight back at him. The ball was hit so hard that it bounces off his hand and still goes all the way for four. 

Five singles in the 10th over. Easy does it for India at the moment. Kohli is on 15 off 18, Rahul on 30 off 31. Both might want to get their strike rates up. 

Full around middle from Aizaz, Rahul just lifts it over midwicket. That is what Rahul can do. India 64/1 in 8.3 overs. 

Rohit moves to the offside for the first time but the ball hits the top of the bat. No power at all and he is caught by the mid-on fielder diving in. 

Rohit c Aizaz Khan b Shukla 21 (13), India 38/1 after 4.5 overs

Not a great third over for Hong Kong. KL Rahul hits a six off a free hit delivery that finally comes to him after two no balls. The first one came when Arshad overstepped and then he sent one floating high and wide of Rahul's head. 

Rohit charges down the track to Haroon Arshad and sends it flying over the bowler's head for a six. 

Rohit and Rahul open for India and it was Haroon Arshad who opened the bowling for Hong Kong. A wide to start off and then four singles to end the over. 

The national anthems have been played in the stadium and we are now ready to go. KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma in pads as expected. 

Rohit Sharma: We were going to bowl first as well. Looks like an even covering of grass and we need to bat well to get to a good score. We just want to continue to do what we are doing as a team. We don't want to look at the opposition and play good and hard cricket. We need to do our basics right, which is what got us a victory against Pakistan. One change: Hardik is rested considering how important he is for us, Pant comes in.

Nizakat Khan: We are going to bowl first. In Oman, we chased down well and that is what we are looking to do. The last time we played India, it was a good game and we know we did some mistakes and want to make sure we capitalize on that. We have the same team we played against UAE.

India: Rohit Sharma(c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja, Dinesh Karthik(w), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Avesh Khan, Yuzvendra Chahal, Arshdeep Singh

Hong Kong: Nizakat Khan(c), Yasim Murtaza, Babar Hayat, Kinchit Shah, Aizaz Khan, Scott McKechnie(w), Zeeshan Ali, Haroon Arshad, Ehsan Khan, Ayush Shukla, Mohammad Ghazanfar

There will be no big all round extravaganza from Pandya. Understandably so, considering he worked harder than anyone else during the match against Pakistan, at the end of which Pakistan's fast bowlers were all hobbling with cramps. Pandya had 4 overs of real express fast bowling and then batted 17 high-intensity balls so he just has to be stuffed up in bubble wrap for India. You might have heard of the guy who Rohit says has replaced Pandya today - Rishabh Pant. 

Hong Kong win the toss and choose to bowl! “Good luck Rohit bhai,” says Nizakat Khan after saying his piece to Sanjay Manjrekar. 

Hong Kong will bowl first if they win the toss, India will have to bat if they win the toss. If Rohit Sharma chooses to bowl that will be extraordinary. They have a chance here to get their openers going, give Kohli some more valuables deliveries under his belt just as he is starting to looking good. 

They could not play too many internationals over the last one and a half years due to the extraordinarily strict Covid-19 rules in China. But, over the past three months, they have played some rigorous cricket all over the world. They pulled off an upset win over UAE to get here. And yet, this is a team made of part-time cricketers, working as delivery drivers, businessmen and even not working at all, students. A truly extraordinary set of players. 

It is a fresh deck and Sanjay Manjrekar says in his pitch report that there is grass everywhere he sees. Which means that the fast bowlers will be steaming in and deliveries would be threatening to knock off helmets. This should be fun. 

All the focus was on Kohli going into the Pakistan match and then walked in Hardik Pandya. He took three wickets during the Pakistan innings and then systematically knocked off the required runs in the topsy turvy chase. He ended the match with figures of 3/25 and 33 not out off 17 balls. 

Kohli looked quite good in the game against Pakistan, with commentator Sanjay Manjrekar repeatedly making note of how many late shots he is playing and how many times he was rocking back on his backfoor. Manjrekar, particularly, had been saying all through Kohli's recent wilderness years that he needs to stop getting forward to every ball and he probably played almost half of the number of backfoot shots he has played in this period just in the game against Pakistan. He scored a valuable 35 off 34 on a tricky pitch against the rip-roaring Pakistan pacers sothat by the time Jadeja and Pandya came, they had time to settle in without facing Haris Rauf and Naseem Shah. 

India's cricketing demigod blurs team boundaries and that shows with what Hong Kong captain Nizakat Khan had to say about him. "I am a big fan of Virat Kohli, he played well against Pakistan, we really want him to come back in form & score lots of runs," he had said. 

"When he [Hardik] was not part of the team, he figured out what he needed to do to his body and his fitness regime, and now he is clocking 140+ easily. His batting quality we all know and it's been brilliant since his comeback. He is a lot calmer now and more confident about what he wants to do, whether it's with the bat or with the ball."

Well it is the chasing side who are winning matches in this tournament but two of those wins have been close affairs, which is reassuring. Rohit Sharma had said before the Pakistan game that toss may not be as big a factor here as it was during the IPL and T20 World Cup last year so there is that. World from the middle is that the surface continues to assist fast bowlers and it remains quite sultry in Dubai. 

One has to remember that this was an ODI match. Shikhar Dhawan's 127 off 120 balls took India to 285/7. It was no cakewalk for India though, with Hong Kong putting up an opening partnership of 174 runs. Captain Anshy Rath and his opening partner Nizakat Khan both missed out on centuries, with the latter getting out on 92. But the fight was not done, each of the Hong Kong batters kept chipping away. Khaleel Ahmed and Yuzvendra Chahal took 3 wickets each to take India to victory. 

The thing about matches against minnows is that you are expected to win them but at the same time, a defeat would lead to utterly catastrophic, almost hilarious, doomsday prophecies from analysts. India almost faced a situation like that against a valiant Hong Kong side last time around. To tell you the short story, they won by 26 runs. For the long story, refer to the next update. 

Well this is not a dead rubber or practice match by any stretch of imagination. This is a tournament and so Net run rate could be a deciding factor that could decide positions. India have already beaten Pakistan and so a big win here would be enough for them to put their feet up until the Super 4 stage. It is also a good way for them to test if they have what it takes to push aside smaller teams and who are the players fit for those roles. It is after all, something they may have to do in the far more competitive league stages of the T20 World Cup this year. 

Hong Kong are the third team in Group A alongwith India and Pakistan. It may not be an enviable position to be in but on the flipside, this is a chance for Hong Kong to play against some of their heroes while getting some valuable experience under their belt of facing two of the truly great teams of the world.