India vs Pakistan Highlights: India thrashed Pakistan in a highly controversial game between the two sides, winning the second game in the Asia Cup 2025 and all but booking their place in the semi-finals.
The India vs Pakistan game was Match 6 of the ACC Asia Cup 2025. The match was played in the Dubai International Stadium and saw the Men in Green win the toss and, surprisingly, decide to bat first, which is against the trend that has been set in this competition.
India vs Pakistan: India Thrash Pakistan To Win Controversial Match
And so, Pakistan came out to bat and had a dismal start to their inning. After a wide on the first ball of the match, Hardik Pandya, on the first legal delivery of the game, dismissed opener Saim Ayub as Jasprit Bumrah caught a simple catch at point.
Speaking of Bumrah, he took a wicket in the very next over as Mohammad Haris, looking to score a boundary, instead skied the ball, which was then caught by Pandya, 6/2. Over the next couple of overs, India created a few more chances, but the pair of Sahibzada Farhan and Fakhar Zaman brought the powerplay to a decent end for their side. At the end of six overs, the score was 42/2.
But then, it was the spinner’s turn to come in and dominate. In the eighth over, which was also the first over bowled by Axar Patel, Zaman looked to pick the pace of the inning up but was caught at long-on. Axar would also take the fourth Pakistani wicket in his next over, dismissing a struggling Salman Ali Agha, who found the top edge while playing a sweep and was caught, 49/4.
The Pakistan collapse continued when, in the 13th over, Kuldeep Yadav took two wickets in two deliveries. After dropping a catch off a brilliant effort, Yadav first dismissed Hasan Nawaz by finding the top edge of his bat, and then, on the very next ball, he trapped Mohammad Nawaz in front of the stumps, 64/6.
Sahibzada Farhan was Pakistan’s only decent run scorer in this match. He, along with Faheem Ashraf, put together some runs for the seventh wicket partnership. However, at the start of the 17th over, Farhan, after scoring 40 off 44, became Kuldeep’s third prey of the day.
At this moment, with Pakistan at 83/7, it seemed that they would struggle to get to the 100-run mark. But Shaheen Afridi had different intentions, hitting sixes as soon as he came in to bat.
Afridi, in the death overs, would shift the momentum slightly towards Pakistan. While he made 33 off 16, he took his team to 127/9 at the end of their 20 overs. But despite a few fireworks towards the end of the inning, the Men in Green had managed to make a sub-par total, and India was the heavy favourite to win this game.
The Indian innings started off in style, with Abhishek Sharma scoring a four off the first ball of the very first over. The Men in Blue would lose their first wicket at the end of the second over. After a quick start, Shubman Gill was stumped out after failing to read a ball by Saim Ayub.
But Sharma kept the pace up, keeping the run rate over 10. But then, in the fourth over, he became Ayub’s second wicket of the night after looking to slog over long on but getting caught, making 31 off 13.
At 41/2 within four overs, India now needed to knock the ball around and win the match. This is what Tilak Varma and captain Suryakumar Yadav intended to do. The two batted at nearly a run a ball for about 10 overs. By the time Varma got out of a peach of a delivery by Saim Ayub in the 3rd over, the score was 97/3.
In the end, Suryakumar and Shivam Dube took India past the target within 16 overs, with SKY making 47 off 37, being the highest run scorer of the match.
For his brilliant four-over spell of 3/18, Kuldeep Yadav was named the Player of the Match in an India vs Pakistan game that lacked any thrill.
India, after two massive and one-sided wins, is the only team in Group A to have two wins in as many games. With their place in the semi-finals all but secure, they will look to finish the group stage of this competition in style by winning their next and final group game of Asia Cup 2025, which is against Oman on Friday, September 19.
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