Asia Cup 2018: 3 main areas of concern for India
When the schedule for the 2018 edition of the Asia Cup was announced, quite a few Indian eyebrows were raised as Rohit Sharma's men were asked to play two ODIs in two days in Dubai, where playing conditions are far from pleasant. Hence, both the fans and the team were thinking of wrapping up the first tie against an unknown Hong Kong as quickly as possible.
Who'd have known that Anshuman Rath's boys had other plans? Not only did Hong Kong extract every bit of skill from the Indian players, they once reached a point where the optimists were sensing the miracle of the decade in the making. However, that was not to be, as chasing a target of 286, Hong Kong came agonizingly close and lost by a margin of 26 runs.
Though India managed to keep miracle at bay, they have a lot to ponder in a very short of span of time. The favourites to win the tournament made quite a few crucial errors, which might not mean much against Hong Kong, but can prove costly against Pakistan. Before the highly awaited clash of the rivals, let us look at three major concerns for India:
#3 Losing wickets in clusters
Though Hong Kong's bowlers were anything but threatening, with pacers barely hitting the 120kmph mark and spinners unable to turn the bowl a considerable lot, Indian batters must prevent their tendency of losing wickets in clusters. After Rohit Sharma's early dismissal, Shikhar Dhawan and Ambati Rayudu built a great partnership.
But the 'fell apart like nine pins' phrase will be applicable when Shikhar Dhawan got out. The opener batted till the 41st over and set up a good platform for the middle order to capitalize, but in the blink of an eye, Hong Kong picked up three wickets. Not insignificant ones, but three big wickets in Dhawan, Dinesh Karthik and Mahendra Singh Dhoni. That gave Hong Kong the momentum and restricted India to 285, while they were once looking on course for comfortably over 300.