New Script, same old ending for Pakistan on another Sunday as promising final gets inevitable ending again.
New Sunday, same script: Suspense thrived, but the surprise never really came.
It is amazing that an India-Pakistan battle still manages to maintain both its inevitability and its danger after all these years. Even after India has solidified its position as cricket’s shepherd, coralling its flock and guiding it in any direction it desires, Pakistan still manages to escape into a rogue pitch and wreak short-term chaos. However, there has never been any question that order will be restored in the end, and the people have played this game long enough to know the cards it concealed in a final that never showed its hand until the very end.
Despite the recent lopsided win total and the Indian captain’s attempt to brush it off as a competition, the fact that Pakistan got as close as they did must have much more to do with it. Their closeness to glory, 11 days after they had to fight to avoid elimination against the UAE, is incredulous given what Pakistan had to offer against an Indian team that last lost a Twenty20 International in the Bronze Age and how well they even seemed to understand their own team’s strengths and weaknesses.
Being Saim Ayub, who appears to have just woken up after his mother threw him out of the house and steered him straight into the Pakistan squad, must be an odd experience. In addition to being in the worst shape of his life, his dismissal also seems to be the catalyst for his complete collapse.
Before Saim came in and attempted to play himself into some form, Sahibzada Farhan, who had never played India two weeks prior and has now scored over 25% of his international runs against them, got Pakistan off to a fast start for the second consecutive Sunday.
Pakistan was handed a valuable second chance in the final, but they were still in about the exact same desired position as they had been the week before when he lost his wicket. Hussain Talat, a player whose T20 game carries roughly the same thrill as a robot with a sore throat reading War and Peace, was brought in on that particular occasion.
Three drastically different uses of the same player on three different Sundays led to his expulsion from the Mohammad Haris sweepstakes this time. He batted in the first over the first time, but he didn’t bat at all last Sunday. Haris dominated the final as India’s agonisingly unrelenting spinners started to settle into their rhythm.
Pakistan showed that they still didn’t know how to handle this specific situation after a week of contemplation. It might as well have been anyone at any point, so if you can remember the Pakistani order after that Haris wicket, then fair play. For the record, the next player to appear was Salman Agha, who Babar Azam would be likened to if he lost his cover drive due to chewing gum. Of course, Salman Agha is at the centre of it all in many respects.
After struggling through the domestic circuit for ten years, Salman Agha has earned his spot in international cricket at a comparatively mature age. There isn’t much to dislike about the man.
However, it started to seem like Pakistan was doing something wrong when he walked out in the final, and it was hard to ignore the emperor’s lack of clothing at that point. Twenty-eight batters have scored more runs than the Pakistani captain in this tournament, all at a rate higher than one run per ball. Every time he appears to play a notable opposition, Agha’s strike rate drops to less than 81 in the Asia Cup and 110 in his career.
He made the decision to hit Kuldeep Yadav off of the ground with his seventh ball. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with a toddler biting off more chocolate than they could chew. With the awkward gait of a wedding dancer thrown into the Bolshoi Ballet, he stammered at the ball. Sanju Samson was delighted to pick it up after it fizzed straight up.
Pakistan has committed to a longer-term initiative that may cause short-term suffering in order to set up long-term benefits. Ironically, Babar and Rizwan may have been ideal given the circumstances this tournament presented, but it is the reason they are out in the cold.
Due to the uncertainty around Haris’ or Shaheen Afridi’s batting role, Pakistan has demonstrated over the past month that while they may be eager to injure, they are hesitant to strike when it matters most.
Additionally, that sounds a lot like the team that Mohammad Rizwan and Babar Azam formerly led. It’s unclear what lessons Pakistan will learn from their performance against India, which they still view as a revolution, given that they somehow both outperformed and underperformed. However, in terms of danger and unavoidability, this is ultimately the most typical kind of Pakistani revolutions, in which the establishment structure doesn’t appear to alter all that much.