Kuldeep and Axar strangle Pakistan in middle-over clampdown as they slammed the door shut on them with ferocity.
Kuldeep and Axar slam the door shut on Pakistan in middle overs.
Years later, the no-handshake gesture and the brewing tension will probably be the first things that come to mind when the Asia Cup 2025 round one between India and Pakistan is discussed. However, if you dig deeper, you’ll find that India’s spin mastery left Pakistan’s youthful batting lineup perplexed.
It looked like Pakistan was just picking through the rubble at one point, 15 overs into their innings. When Faheem Ashraf faced a hat-trick ball from Kuldeep Yadav in the thirteenth over, Suryakumar Yadav placed a short midwicket, a stupid mid-on, a short cover, a slip, and a leg slip. That was the moment that encapsulated everything.
The choke by spin
All Pakistan needs to do is examine the scorecard for the game and compare India’s strong strategy to their own, particularly following the powerplay. They didn’t put enough pressure on India’s spinners to think creatively. They went into their shell at the end of the powerplay, going 42 for 2, before finally collapsing.
Pakistan lost two wickets and failed to strike a boundary between overs 5.3 and 11. The ground staff’s attempt to mop up the outer pockets at the halfway point showed that India was flying through their overs with spin before the dew got thicker, which didn’t help either.
Axar Patel broke Pakistan’s back during this phase. His first attack was a huge shot that he pulled to Tilak Varma at long-on after he beat Fakhar Zaman in flight. He hit Salman Agha with a knockout blow two overs later.
Agha tried to slog sweep his way out of danger after getting stuck on 3 off 11 and growing more and more eager to get out, but he top-edged tamely to deep square leg. At the halfway point, Pakistan was struggling at 49 for 4, having lost all momentum in the innings due to those two quick-spread strikes.
Indian skipper on his spin twins
Suryakumar noted that Axar’s success was not solely down to his ability to take wickets. He cited a focused-training approach that has been effective.
“His plans are very clear. Whenever I see him at practice, he bowls a lot to left-handers because that’s a proper match-up,” he said. “You feel if a left-hander is walking in, you can’t bowl a left-arm spinner, but he practices more to the left-hand batters. And when he bowls to the right-handers, he has his own plans. I’m really happy with his clear plans.”
India’s effective resource management throughout the innings was highlighted by Kuldeep’s double-strike. In the middle overs, India essentially left their spinners with a cushion and attacking fields after burning through three of Bumrah’s overs inside the powerplay—a strategy Suryakumar has already used in back-to-back games.
Kuldeep and Axar slammed the door shut, and they couldn’t have done it better.