Though India won the match against Pakistan by 5 wickets in their opening match of the Asia Cup 2022 tournament, many cricket experts slam the Indian cricket team for their poor performance.
Sunil Gavaskar Slams Virat Kohli
Particularly Indian top-order players fail to score enough runs. Opening batsman KL Rahul departs for a golden duck while skipper Rohit Sharma scored 12 runs off 18 runs. Virat Kohli scored 35 runs off 34 balls and was dismissed off Nawaz’s delivery in the 10th over.
Indian top-order players’ failures grab the attention of many cricket experts particularly former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar felt that the players need to score big.
“Rahul played just one ball, so you can’t judge anything from that. Rohit and Kohli had the opportunity to bat for some time, they got runs. All these earlier times when people were talking about Kohli’s form, I kept on saying that he is not having any luck.
“Today, he had a lot of luck, drop catches, a lot of inside edges, which went so close to the stumps, he had the luck. But he did capitalise on it and played some very fine shots,” Gavaskar was quoted as saying to the media.
“But one had expected that with the kind of start that he had, he should have got around 60-70. He got out immediately after Rohit got out. Both of them got out to forgettable shots. At that stage, those shots were not necessary as the asking rate wasn’t 19 or 20 for them to attempt sixes at that stage,” Gavaskar stated.
“It was required for them to get going, get to 70-80 and then maybe go for the big shots. That should be learning from this game,” he added.
Though India strangles while batting, it was Hardik Pandya who made some crucial knocks and led the Indian cricket team to win the match with 2 balls left to bowl. India loses 4 wickets for 89 within 15 overs and were in need of some massive shots in the death overs.
Hardik Pandya and Dinesh Karthik were at the crease while India needed 7 runs off the last over where Hardik hits a six off the 4th delivery and leads India to beat Pakistan by 5 wickets.
India will their next match against Hong Kong on August 31 in Dubai International Cricket Stadium, Dubai.
