World champions India invincible in Asia

The true greatness of the Indian cricket team that won the Asia Cup on Sunday night wasn’t so much in going unbeaten in the tournament. No. That, the real reflection of their superiority, lay in the fact that Suryakumar Yadav’s side humbled the second-best team in the tournament, Pakistan in this case, on three separate occasions in a matter of days, without once being pushed to the limit. Blanking the next-best 3-0 in an eight-team tournament, therefore, was a convincing demonstration of the incredible depth in the country when it comes to the shortest format of the game.

Don’t go by the scoreboard in the final: which, at least on paper, suggests that the contest was a close one, given that it went into the very last over of the match. The hard truth is that India always had a measure of Salman Agha’s men, even when they had gotten off to a rollicking start, at one point finding themselves on 77 for no loss after nine overs. The fall of half-centurion Sahibzada Farhan in the 10th, Pakistan’s first wicket, didn’t seem to perturb them too much going into the second half of their batting innings, but the introduction of Kuldeep Yadav certainly did.

In his penultimate over of the evening, the 13^th of the bowling innings, Chinaman bowler Yadav affected Pakistan’s second wicket, that of Saim Ayub, on a total of 113. When Yadav came back for his next, the 17^th, he took three more Pakistani wickets to leave their batting order in shambles, so much so that Pakistan eventually went from 113/1 to 146 all out, having lost their last nine wickets for just 33 runs. Yadav’s figures of 4/30 ensured that he finished the Asia Cup with 17 wickets, almost twice as many scalps as the next-best across the tournament, which still didn't win him the Man of the Series award (that went to Abhishek Sharma).

A target of 147 runs was never really going to pose a challenge to this Indian side, where each member has earned his spot to represent his country after having thrived in the unreal pressures of the Indian Premier League. So, even though India’s top-order had a rare off-day, what with openers Abhishek and Shubman Gill as well as No.3 Suryakumar all falling by the fourth over to leave India limping at 20 for three, the middle-order easily steadied the ship. The enforcer on the night was young Tilak Varma, who whipped and walloped his way to an unbeaten 69, even as Sanju Samson (24) and Shivam Dube (33) gave the lefty able company. For his effort, Varma was named the Man of the Match in the final.

Even though all-rounder Dube departed off the last ball of the penultimate over, trying to shave six runs from the target, India were left with 10 whole runs to win from the last over. It wasn't enough to phase the Indians, to say the very least. Varma swiped Haris Rauf beyond the square-leg fence to eat away at most of the target, before a single gave new-man Rinku Singh exactly to run to score in his first batting appearance of the three-week long tournament. But so match-ready is every player in the Indian set-up that Rinku coolly smashed the very first ball he faced in this Asia Cup over midwicket to the fence, even as his side won the event without as much as a single hiccup all tournament long.

Brief scores: Pakistan 146 all out in 19.1 overs (Sahibzada Farhan 57, Fakhar Zaman 46; Kuldeep Yadav 4/30, Axar Patel 2/26) lost to India 150/5 in 19.4 overs (Tilak Varma 69 not out, Shivam Dube 33; Faheem Ashraf 3/29) by five wickets.