Asia Cup: India-Pakistan tie spills over to reserve day

PTI

COLOMBO, September 10

Rain bedevilled the Asia Cup’s most anticipated clash again today, halting India’s mouth-watering Super 4 clash with arch-rivals Pakistan, which will now be completed tomorrow.

Put in to bat, India had reached 147/2 in 24.1 overs when heavy rain suspended play. The umpires waited for nearly four hours before deciding the rest of the match would be played on the reserve day.

The group match between the heavyweights in Pallekele had been abandoned because of rain after the Indian innings.

The Indian openers impressed after Pakistan captain Babar Azam won the toss and elected to field.

Shaheen Afridi had troubled India’s top-order in recent encounters but Rohit Sharma and his team appeared to have found an antidote against the left-arm speedster. Shubman Gill, particularly, took the sting out of Pakistan’s fiery pace attack when he combined with Rohit in a rollicking 122-run opening stand.

Gill (58) on two occasions smashed Afridi for three boundaries in an over, eventually throwing the bowler out of the attack after an expensive first spell. Rohit survived Naseem Shah’s hostile opening spell before asserting himself, hitting four sixes in his breezy 56 as boundaries flowed from both ends. Spinner Shadab Khan broke the partnership when Rohit holed out in the deep and Afridi returned to end Gill’s fluent knock to drag Pakistan back into the contest. KL Rahul, picked after Shreyas Iyer was ruled out with back spasms, and Virat Kohli, batting on eight, were about to steady India when rain stopped play. — Reuters

Getting rid of fear biggest challenge: Rahul

Overcoming the mental barrier was the biggest challenge KL Rahul faced while rehabilitating after suffering a serious quadriceps injury that laid him low for nearly four months. Rahul had suffered the debilitating injury during the IPL, which later necessitated surgery in London. “You fight a big mental battle where you’re always thinking that I might feel pain. And when you are in that mindset, you can’t really start focusing on skills,” said Rahul. “So the biggest challenge was to get rid of that fear.” The 31-year-old added that wicketkeeping requires a lot of strength in the quads and the biggest question in his mind while rehabilitating was how he would convince himself to don the role again after such a big surgery. “The big thing was to feel confident in my own body and be pain-free in movements that require a lot of intensity. Especially, I knew coming back, I’ll have to keep wicket as well. And that was one of the big concerns for the physios and me,” he said.

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