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Saturday, September 22, 2018

2018 Asia Cup 2018 in UAE Sep 15-28,2018 - India Hold Edge Over Uncertain Pakistan in Dubai Sunday Sep 23,2018



Squads

India: Rohit Sharma(capt), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Ambati Rayudu, Manish Pandey, Dinesh Karthik, MS Dhoni, Kedar Jadhav, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Deepak Chahar, Siddarth Kaul, K Khaleel Ahmed.

Pakistan: Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Babar Azam, Shan Masood, Sarfraz Ahmed(capt), Shoaib Malik, Haris Sohail, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Junaid Khan, Usman Khan, Shaheen Afridi, Asif Ali, Mohammad Amir

It's time for Round 2.

For all the hype around it, Round 1 of India vs Pakistan was an immaterial one as far as the Asia Cup was concerned. The match too ended up not living up to its hype, India running away with the game with an all-round performance. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah and Kedhar Jadhav ran through the Pakistan line-up and bowled them out for 162, a total that was chased down with ease by the Indian top order.

In fact, the one-sided nature of the contests has been the theme for many of the recent India-Pakistan matches. Each and every game has been preceded with hype and talks about on-field war, but the actual games have ended up falling flat. The Champions Trophy final was won easily by Pakistan. India won with similar ease when the two sides met in the group stage of that tournament. Ditto in the two T20Is in 2016 - the World T20 and Asia Cup - and in the World Cup 2015 game in Adelaide.

The last proper India-Pakistan thriller was in the 2014 Asia Cup when Shahid Afridi slammed R Ashwin for two sixes in the last over to seal a one-wicket win.

Pakistan will want Fakhar Zaman and Sarfraz Ahmed to do better. Zaman has scores of 24, 0 and 0 in the tournament, while Sarfraz has made 14 runs in two games. Zaman in particular is key, for he came into the tournament with terrific form and can change the course of the game with his aggressive batting. India already know that - they only have to rewind to the Champions Trophy 2017.

India's batsmen have been in good form, but their bowlers' success in the last two matches meant they haven't been able to test one key area - their middle-order batting - yet. The middle-order only posted 48 runs in the last 10 overs against Hong Kong, but with India winning by eight and seven wickets respectively in the next two games, the middle order hasn't come into play.

Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan are among the runs, while Ambati Rayudu and Dinesh Karthik have made decent contributions. The key for Pakistan will be to get past these four quickly, as the rest haven't been exposed much yet. India perhaps won't mind that, for such a situation will help them test the Dhoni and Jadhavs and Jadejas with the bigger picture in mind.

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