India Demolish Pakistan, Lift Asia Cup with Tilak-Kuldeep Show
28, Sep, New Delhi : It was for the first time in 41 years that the neighbours created in 1947 were facing each other in the finals of the “Asia Cup”. Despite this being their third encounter in the tournament, the result remained the same.
Indian captain Surya Kumar Yadav won the toss and elected to field. Pakistan openers gave their team a good start with Shahibzada Farhan scoring a fifty and his partner Fakhar Zaman scoring 46. They were cruising to a good total but the Indian spin trio had different plans. Pakistan at one point was 113/1 but then they lost 9 wickets for mere 33 runs and got all out at 146 in the ultimate over of the innings. India came out for the chase and were struggling at 20/3 at the end of the fourth over. Tilak Verma and Sanju Samson stitched a crucial 57 runs partnership to stable the ship and after Sanju’s wicket, Shivam Dube took the charge with 33 runs at a strike rate of 150 which started India’s counter attack. Meanwhile Tilak was there chipping singles with a single thought in this mind to stay in the middle and take the team home. So, when Shivam got out trying to hit a slower delivery of Faheem Ashraf out of the ground, Tilak hit Haris for a six and then it was the man who played just that one ball to finish the tournament. Rinku Singh hit Haris Rauf for a four and made India a record 9 times champion of this tournament. Tilak Verma was awarded Player of the Match for his 69* and Abhishek Sharma was awarded with Player of the Tournament for scoring 314 runs, the highest for an individual player in the tournament. If Kuldeep would have been awarded the Player of the Tournament, nobody would have batted an eye as he was the highest wicket taker in this match with 4/30 as well as the tournament with 17 wickets.
The Indian team decided to not accept the trophy from the ACC President Mohsin Naqvi as he is also the Interior Minister of the Government of Pakistan. The team then celebrated without the trophy.
✍️ : Pranjal
