Asia Cup: India Pakistan Classic cricket match in prospect
While the world enjoys an enthralling World Cup in South Africa, at least one-fifth of the entire population living on planet Earth will stay stand still for up to eight hours as the greatest sporting battle in the sub-continent takes place at Dambulla in Sri Lanka.
It is time for an India versus Pakistan in the Asia cup cricket tournament, which besides the opening match, has virtually gone unnoticed thus far.
It all will change tomorrow when the two teams line-up for an engrossing battle in the pearl island.
The two nations have fought three wars over the years and have a history of political uncertainty that has plagued the region for more than six decades.
The feeling is reflected when the two teams meet over the cricketing field, resulting in some of the most exciting cricket matches in the history of the game.
The two teams have met eight times in the Asia cup, with Pakistan winning four and India winning three games. One match was abandoned.
Both teams are coming from a string of poor performances in all formats of the game. The Indians crashed to two defeats at the hands of Zimbabwe in a three-nation tournament earlier in the month, soon after their early exit in the World T20 championship held in the Caribbean.
The team that went to Zimbabwe was very much an experimental squad, which included many young players, led by Suresh Raina.
Regular captain MS Dhoni has returned to lead the team in the Asia cup, and so have many of the senior players sans Yuvraj Singh who was axed after an abysmal performance in the T20 world event.
Sachin Tendulkar has also been rested for the event, as he preferred to rest from the continental tournament.
Pakistan on the other hand is on an eight match losing streak that started in UAE last year. They have lost ten out of their eleven one-day matches and have been led by three different captains in these matches.
Last month, the captaincy in all formats of the game was handed over to ‘Boom Boom’ Afridi who led the team to the semi-finals of the T20 world championship. The man from the Khyber Agency started the tournament in Dambulla with arguably the greatest innings of his one-day career smashing a 76 ball 109 that included seven monstrous sixes.
His herculean effort was not enough to take his team to a win over the hosts in the opening match of the tournament, as the men in green crashed to a 16 run loss from a seemingly comfortable position.
The Pakistani team for the Asia cup includes Shoaib Akhtar and Shoaib Malik - both have outstanding record against the Indians in one-day format of the game and Afridi would be relying heavily on the two Shoaib’s in the match tomorrow.
The match is a virtual do-or-die for the men in green as defeat tomorrow would bring an end to Pakistan’s campaign in the Asia cup tournament and event that has traditionally been unkind to them.
Despite being one of the three genuine contenders for the event, Pakistan has won the tournament only once in eight attempts with their win coming in the 2000 edition held in Bangladesh.
The Indians know that a win would seal their place in the event’s final after their six wicket drubbing of Bangladesh earlier in the week, and even without any incentive the men in blue are always raring to go for the jugular against their bitter rivals.
All in all the match promises electrifying cricket, the two teams are balanced on paper and have the capability of beating each other, but as always in an India-Pakistan encounter it is the battle of nerves that the teams need to overcome.
Whatever the outcome may be, cricket fans are in for a treat tomorrow and let us hope that the best team wins.
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