India and Pakistan don’t play regularly enough these days due to political reasons. So, their rare bout on the cricket ground is highly anticipated with great excitement. India and Pakistan match disappointingly got abandoned due to rain. As the Asia Cup 2023 has been moved to Sri Lanka in Monsoon season, rain hovering around is highly predictable. Also, during build-up to the match, weather experts have predicted rain giving troubles but at least 20-over match to be possible. Well, India found out that their middle-order is getting into form in this match.
Major concern for India has been losing early wickets to moving ball against left-arm pace bowlers. While India has been a top order batting dependent team, middle-order needed to put their hands up for a CWC win. Rohit Sharma, captain of India, has decided to bat first as rain threat has been hovering around. Shaheen Shah Afridi has again started swinging and troubling batters. Shubman Gill looked out of touch with the ball moving around. Rohit Sharma looked better and he scored handsome boundaries. Rain came down at this point.
Pakistan bowlers got together and the break helped them. Shaheen Shah Afridi got Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli quickly. India looked deep in trouble as Shubman Gill(10) and Shreyas Iyer(14) also got out quickly. At 66/4, Ishan Kishan and Hardik Pandya came together. They kept the partnership going with singles and doubles. Ishan Kishan went on to score his best fifty for India. In middle-order, he looked best fit as wicket-keeper batter. He and KL Rahul will fight for that spot after this innings.
Hardik Pandya played better than he did against West Indies. Ishan Kishan scored 82 runs from 81 balls. Hardik Pandya looked set for a century but got out to a clever change of pace from Shaheen Shah Afridi. He scored 87 runs from 90 balls. Jasprit Bumrah showed his batting prowess by scoring 16 runs in 14 balls. Shaheen Shah Afridi(4/35), Haris Rauf(3/58) and Naseem Shah(3/36) took wickets for Pakistan. As the chase needed to start, rain never stopped and umpires abandoned the match. India got good middle-order partnership and now they need everyone to come good in coming match against Nepal.
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