India’s Asia Cup 2023 opener against Pakistan might not have produced a result thanks to rain but it had its moments with the two teams showing terrific fightback.
Shaheen Afridi landed early blows when he got rid of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli cheaply. And then Haris Rauf landed a couple of strikes of his own to leave India struggling.
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Ishan Kishan and Hardik Pandya then stitched a century stand to lead an excellent recovery with each hitting half-century. At one stage, it appeared India may end up with a 300-plus total before Pakistan hit back limiting them to 266 in 48.5 overs.
Afridi drew praises for how he got rid of Rohit.
It was a well set dismissal as the left-arm pacer took two deliveries away from the India captain before bringing in the third to see the ball sneak between Rohit’s bat and pad to crash onto the stumps.
This was the second time in the past three occasions that Rohit has fallen victim to the young pacer.
Pakistan fast bowling legend Shoaib Akhtar feels that the issue is with Rohit’s mindset and claimed that subconsciously the India batting star thinks he cannot deal with Afridi.
“It looks like a body double is playing for Rohit Sharma. Sub-consciously he feels that he cannot play Shaheen Afridi. It’s a very bad visual (the dismissal to Afridi) for him,” Akhtar said on Star Sports.
Harbhajan Singh said Indian cricketers are always under pressure because of the expectations from the public.
“Indian cricketers are under immense pressure (from the fans) especially when they play against Pakistan. I remember 2003 (ODI World Cup) when we lost to Australia (in final), slogans were raised here. If you lose, you need security outside our name. My request to those people is these are players but any team can win on a day,” he Bhajji said.
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