It was a sight to behold for the Pakistani fans, and one to turn the heads away from for the Indian fans, as Shaheen Afridi dismissed Pakistan’s biggest of the past decade, Virat Kohli, for a cheap score of only 4 runs in their first meeting in the Asia Cup 2023.
Amid the concerns about the rain, the match started on its scheduled time at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium in Kandy with Rohit Sharma winning the toss and electing to bat first.
The first 90 minutes of the match had two parts: before and after rain. Before the rain interruption, the India openers Rohit and Shubman Gill cautiously and carefully played out 4.2 overs of new-ball burst from Shaheen Afridi and Naseem Shah.
After that, however, when play resumed following a short rain break, the Pakistani pacers wreaked havoc over the Indian batters.
Rohit Sharma had hit a couple of lucky boundaries, but he and Shubman Gill were mostly just either blocking or playing and missing the balls. Eventually, Shaheen Afridi had his first scalp. He knocked over Rohit’s off-stump, setting him up with two away slanting deliveries, which Rohit played and missed, and then dismissing him with an inswinger that straightened upon pitching in line and beating Rohit’s inside edge.
Shaheen Afridi rattled Virat Kohli’s stumps
The big scalp, though, came a couple of overs after Rohit’s dismissal: that of Virat Kohli, inside edging Shaheen Afridi onto his stumps, and walking away with a wry smile on his face as Shaheen celebrated in his trademark celebration with his teammates jumping around him.
Virat Kohli had driven Naseem Shah for a gorgeous cover drive boundary. But Shaheen didn’t give him enough room and cramped him for space. Another back-of-length delivery that slanted away from Virat Kohli. The batsman looked to punch it on the offside, but inside-edged it onto the sticks. Next was a big eruption among the Pakistani fans while Indian fans had their hands over their heads.
Watch the dismissal here:
WE OWN INDIA TOP ORDER
WE OWN CHOKLI
WE OWN ROHIT https://t.co/UA25j4o4Ka— junaiz (@dhillow_) September 2, 2023
Haris Rauf, too, got into the act and dismissed Shreyas Iyer to leave India reeling at 48/3 inside 10 overs.
Teams:
India (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma(c), Shubman Gill, Ishan Kishan(w), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj
Pakistan (Playing XI): Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Babar Azam(c), Mohammad Rizwan(w), Agha Salman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf
