India vs Pakistan Highlights Asia Cup Super 4: Play called off; rain, wet outfield moves IND vs PAK game to reserve day

Oh no, don't worry, still no rains yet in Colombo. In fact it is nice and clear still, as we speak.

The pitch at the R Premadasa could be the slowest yet in this tournament and could provide a lot of assistance to the spinners. Unlike what happened in the match against India, it was Pakistan's spinners who reigned supreme in their match against Afghanistan on this ground.

The young fast bowler took a knock on his arm while fielding against Bangladesh in Pakistan's previous Super 4 match. But reports are that he is fine now and is available for selection today.

Gill was hassled and harried by Afridi and Naseem, eventually falling for 10 runs off 32 balls. “It was my first game playing Pakistan in a senior men's game and there was extra pressure obviously. But the way I look at it is that there'll be pressure in all nine league games at the World Cup. They will all be must-win games and there will be pressure similar to what was felt playing Pakistan the other day, so the experience will help,” he said before this match. 

Bumrah looked like he was itching to get out there during the innings break of the first India-Pakistan match. He had been one of the first bowlers to make his way downstairs and start warming up when it looked like the umpires might have deemed conditions good enough for a slightly curtailed chase to happen. Then, he missed the match against Nepal for personal reasons and is now back. How annoyed would he be if he doesn't get to bowl today, eh?

If you can recall the first India-Pakistan encounter of this tournament, Naseem Shah had arguably been their best bowler for much of the game but didn't have any wickets to show for it. He eventually did pick wickets though and after taking a few more in the subsequent games, Naseem has now played 13 ODIs in his career and taken at least one wicket in each of those matches.

Too much of a nice thing is never good and that seems to be the case with the Indian cricket team and the dept they have in every position. In any other team, slotting KL Rahul back to the No.5 role as soon as he gets fit would be a no-brainer. So would letting Ishan Kishan stay in the team based on his extraordinary current form. And yet, it does look like both these scenarios are mutually exclusive at the moment in the Indian team. Ishan Kishan has scored four consecutive 50-plus scores in ODIs thus far. Among India batters, only Virat Kohli, Sachin Tendulkar, Ajinkya Rahane and Rohit Sharma have more (five each), with Kohli having done so on three different occasions. And yet, today, Kishan might be dropped to bring back Rahul. Can India find a way of playing the two together? Does Shubman Gill have to be worried in that case?

Pakistan have managed to bowl out the opposition in all three matches that they have played thus far. In that first match against India, all of the wickets had fallen to pace.

“Given the continuous cricket we are playing both in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, you can say that we hold an edge (over India). We have been playing here in Sri Lanka for the past two months or so. We have played Tests, we played a series against Afghanistan and then the LPL, so it can be said that we have an advantage,” said the Pakistan captain before the match

India are yet to play a full, uninterrupted match, in this tournament. In the first, which was against Pakistan, India batted first and didn't bowl and in the second against Nepal, they hardly batted.

Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf and Naseem Shah seem to be a hark back to the days when Pakistan's pace attack would be led by Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis with a young and angry Shoaib Akhtar behind them. South Africa bowling great Morne Morkel has done a lot of work with these pacers and he recently spoke about it on the PCB's twitter handle.

Well, well, well, in spite of all the doomsday weather forecasts, there are blue skies shining over Colombo at the moment. Let's hope it stays this way throughout the day. 

Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Babar Azam(c), Mohammad Rizwan(w), Agha Salman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Faheem Ashraf, Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf, Saud Shakeel, Mohammad Nawaz, Usama Mir, Abdullah Shafique, Mohammad Haris, Mohammad Wasim Jr

Rohit Sharma(c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Ishan Kishan(w), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Jasprit Bumrah, Axar Patel, KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Prasidh Krishna, Tilak Varma

The first match between these two teams was simmering nicely and seemed set for a nail-biting second half when the clouds over Pallekele decided they had scene enough cricket for the day. Rain has been a constant companion to the Asia Cup this year whenever it has been played in Sri Lanka. Colombo is known to have hosted matches at this time of the year and so, this much rainfall is unusual. But, it is what it is and the forecasts indicate that it could be a day where we appreciate the ground staff at the R Premadasa Stadium more than the players and the match itself.