Dubai: India crushed the United Arab Emirates by nine wickets, chasing down a paltry 58-run target in just 4.3 overs, in their opening match of the Asia Cup here on Wednesday.
Abhishek Sharma made 30 off 16 balls while his opening partner Shubman Gill and captain Suryakumar Yadav remained not out on 20 and 7 respectively as India reached 60 for 1 in 4.3 overs in a completely lopsided match.
Earlier, India bowled the UAE out for a mere 57, with Kuldeep Yadav (4/7) and Shivam Dube (3/4) wreaking havoc with the ball.
Jasprit Bumrah (1/19 in 3 overs) started the slide with a perfect yorker to remove Kerala born Alishan Sharafu (22 off 17 balls), who had till then survived audaciously with three boundaries and a six.
Once Bumrah landed a perfect one at the base of Sharafu’s boots, UAE’s promising start turned into a sorry tale with batters making a beeline back to the dug-out.
The troika of spinners — Kuldeep, Varun Chakravarthy (1/4 in 2 overs), and Axar Patel (1/13 in 3 overs) are bowlers whom the players from associate nations don’t play regularly and UAE had no clue how to counter them.
Shivam Dube (3/4 in 2 overs), whose bowling is going to be important heading into T20 World Cup, helped himself with career-best figures, polishing off the tail in style.
Rahul Chopra wanted to hit out of trouble against Kuldeep and was holed out at long-on while left-handed Harshit Kaushik had no clue how to tackle a chinaman’s googly — one that comes into the southpaw.
Skipper Muhammad Waseem (19 off 22 balls) found it difficult to get going and when he tried to sweep Kuldeep, the ball bounced a tad extra.
In all, the Indian bowlers delivered 81 balls — 13.1 overs plus two wides and UAE batters couldn’t score off 52 deliveries.
The bowling plans laid by Gautam Gambhir and skipper Suryakumar Yadav were perfectly executed by the unit and the Dubai track is helping the spinners and the trio is expected to trouble other teams as well.
Brief Scores:
UAE: 57 all out in 13.1 overs (Alishan Sharafu 22; Shivam Dube 3/4, Kuldeep Yadav 4/7).
