Asia Cup 2025: India vs Pakistan preview | Desert Storm 2: With slate wiped clean, focus is back on the game

Results of past several days will hold no importance beyond bragging rights. There is everything to play for as traditional foes kick off their respective Super 4 campaigns.

Dubai: It’s taken the T20 Asia Cup 11 days and 12 matches to catch fire. After an elaborate build-up dominated by off-field one-upmanship, the league phase ended in dramatic fashion on Friday in Abu Dhabi, with unfancied Oman putting favourites India through the wringer before going down by 21 runs.

Perhaps this is the cue for the on-field action to match the frenzied developments in the backrooms, catalysed by Suryakumar Yadav and his men’s refusal under instructions to shake hands with their Pakistani opponents when the teams locked horns in a Group A encounter last Sunday.

As another Sunday beckons, another chapter in this storied, often prickly rivalry is set to be scripted at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium. The results of the past several days will hold no importance beyond bragging rights. With the slate wiped clean, there is everything to play for as the traditional foes kick off their respective Super Four campaigns.

Before running into a tartar in Oman, India had been on top of their game, rolling UAE and Pakistan over with consummate ease. Fuelled by their assortment of spinning resources, they laid down the gauntlet which no one else from their group truly picked up.

Not too much should be read into how the Oman fixture devolved. India were in experimental mode after benching Jasprit Bumrah and Varun Chakravarthy and reshuffling their batting order, while Jatinder Singh’s starry-eyed outfit took the nothing-to-lose approach to heart by targeting India’s ‘lesser’ bowlers, who clearly suffered from lack of match-play.

India will be back at full strength on Sunday. Axar Patel, who left the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium park on Friday after banging his head on the turf while shelling a difficult catch, should be available for selection, which is wonderful news on various counts. Axar is an underrated but influential cog in the slick Indian wheel; he doesn’t mind being out of the limelight though his all-round skills compel attention and admiration.

Abhishek Sharma has been India’s enforcer, as he has been since his debut 14 months back, striking the ball crisply and cleanly. He has been dismissed in the 30s in all his three hits here and therefore has the added motivation of kicking on to bigger things; Sanju Samson will derive confidence from his half-century, never mind that he was way below his fluent best.

Bumrah’s fierce right hand and Kuldeep Yadav’s supple left wrist hold the key to how quickly, and well, India impose themselves on a fragile, uncertain Pakistani batting unit. Saim Ayub has courted three ducks on the bounce, Salman Agha’s men haven’t benefitted from constant shifting of positions and Shaheen Shah Afridi has made a strong pitch for being recognised as Pakistan’s best batter of the tournament so far, none of which ought to inspire too much confidence.

Pakistan have a history of tearing the formbook to shreds when they are pushed to a corner, which is where they find themselves now after adopting a defiant, aggressive mien in the aftermath of the no-handshake episode. They might believe they have the bowling to challenge a power-packed Indian batting unit, but unless they have buried their head in the sand, they won’t be unaware of how patchy and inconsistent their own batters have been.

As has been the norm in recent times, the balance of power seems emphatically tilted in India’s side. Man for man, they are the superior, more rounded outfit but as Oman reiterated, the sum of the parts being greater than the whole isn’t merely a cute idiom.