Nisshin, Oct 3: Abhishek Sharma took the Pakistan spinners to the cleaners with a blistering 61 off 28 balls and Tilak Varma provided the final flourish with an unbeaten 51 as India posted an imposing 211 for six on a tricky track in the men’s cricket final at the Asian Games here Saturday.
The stylish left-hander, who had tormented Pakistan in the last year’s Asia Cup also, was in his elements as he completely took the pitch out of equation with a 20-ball half-century, completely diffusing the opposition’s spin-dominated attack.
He hit seven towering sixes — two off which were off medium pacer Ahmed Daniyal — apart from three boundaries.
Abhishek feasted on some friendly slow bowling, hitting sixes on both sides of the wicket with gay abandon.
Ishan Kishan (20 off 18 balls) briefly consolidated team’s position in company of skipper Shreyas Iyer (21 off 24) as they added 35 runs for the fourth wicket before Pakistan’s best bowler — left-arm spinner Arafat Minhas (2/25 in 3 overs) sent him back.
Arafat also varied his pace cleverly as he got the rampaging Abhishek stumped which added pressure on the defending champions.
The final flourish was provided by Tilak (51 not out off 22 balls) and Shivam Dube (27 off 15 balls) who blasted the spinners after a lull period. The duo added 62 runs for the sixth wicket in just five overs just when scoring quick seemed difficult.
The 18th over bowled by chinaman Sufyan Moqim (0/33 in 3 overs) yielded 18 runs and then off-spinner Saim Ayub gave away 23 in the penultimate over.
In the last over bowled by pacer Ahmed Daniyal, 16 more were scored as India hit a total of 15 sixes on a track assisting the spinners heavily.
India scored 81 for 2 in Powerplay and the Pakistan team looked completely clueless after Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (15 off 9 balls) started the mayhem with a couple of sixes off debutant leg-spinner Saad Masood.
Sooryavanshi was dismissed trying to reverse hit off-spinner Ayub, who gave the 15-year-old send-off with a “rocking the baby” celebration.
It was left-arm orthodox Arafat who actually put brakes on scoring during the back-10 when both skipper Iyer and Kishan didn’t actually get the big shots between overs 11 to 15.
Once Kishan was bowled by a delivery that was fast, straight and bounced a tad more, Iyer’s painstaking knock ended off leggie Abrar’s bowling. From 93 for 2, India had suddenly slumped to 133 for 5.
Arafat bowled wicket-to-wicket and let the ball do the rest by pitching it in right areas, while leg-spinner Abrar cleverly reduced the pace of his deliveries as Iyer literally struggled to get going.
Just when it seemed that India might not reach 200, Tilak-Dube paired provided fireworks in the nick of time.
