Asia Cup 2018: Confident Pakistan have a slight edge over a shaky Indian side

Cricket’s most decorated, anticipated and hotly-contested rivalry is all set to resume when India and Pakistan go up against each other in the Asia Cup on Wednesday.

And yet, for one of the few occasions, Pakistan is set to walk into the match with a slight edge over their arch-rivals, especially after the way the Rohit Sharma led side survived a scare against debutants Hong Kong on Tuesday.

On paper, it was billed as India’s practice match ahead of their clash against Pakistan. But when debutant Khaleel Ahmed finally struck in the 35th over, the joy and ecstasy in the face of the Indians told a different story altogether.

Chasing 285, Hong Kong almost pulled off a shocker before India almost scrapped through to edge out on a win by 26 runs. This is certain to ring a bell in the Indian camp-are they really the force to be reckoned with in the tournament?

Yet, this was the same Hong Kong side that was handed a big defeat against Pakistan few days ago. Although they had most of their regular players, they were good in all the departments and looked like a side with intent and character.

From Usman Shinwari’s three-wicket burst in an over to Imam ul-Haq’s patient knock, Pakistan expectedly schooled the debutants and they would walk into the match against India on Wednesday, with a lot of confidence, momentum and everything good.

The story in the Indian camp is however entirely different. Tipped by big names to be the successful defenders of their title, India’s performance against Hong Kong wasn’t convincing enough to put faith in the team sans Virat Kohli.

From a comfortable 240/2 in 40 overs, all that India could muster at the end was 285 runs and their performance with the ball looked way off-colour, to say the least as they walked into their match against Pakistan.

Shikhar Dhawan and Ambati Rayudu were the ones to cross the half-century mark as Ravi Shastri would clearly have in mind to arrest such batting collapses at the end of the innings. On the bowling front, inexperience is the main concern but performance on the day is all that would matter.

A story of two entirely different teams with contrasting wins in their last matches, this India-Pakistan match is going to be right up there amongst the others. Will it be the highly confident Pakistan who would win or will Rohit Sharma find out a way to assert India’s dominance in the tournament, as the defending champions?

Also read: Asia Cup 2018: Shikhar Dhawan scores 14th ODI ton as India pile big score against Hong Kong