Asia Cup 2023: Predicting 3 players who could pick up the most wickets in today’s India vs Pakistan match ft. Kuldeep Yadav
Almost all India-Pakistan ODIs over the last few years have been decided by either team's bowling attacks.
Kuldeep Yadav's brilliance killed Pakistan's chase in the last ODI between the two teams at the 2019 World Cup. In the 2018 Asia Cup, India restricted their neighbors to under-par scores on good batting pitches in both matches.
A year before, Mohammed Amir's opening spell blew India away in the 2017 Champions Trophy final. Earlier in the tournament, India won by a massive margin of 124 runs courtesy of brilliant spells by Umesh Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja.
India haven't batted Pakistan out in an ODI in a long time, nor have Pakistan chased a tricky total, nor vice-versa. It has often been one side doing the par-job with the bat before or after bowlers have won the game.
Even before the Asia Cup clash between the two teams on Saturday at the Pallekele International Stadium, Pakistan's pace battery has been in the news for as good reasons as India's batting order has been for wrong reasons.
So who'll it be this time? Which bowler will pick the most wickets and put up a performance that'll be remembered for a bit more than usual? Here are our picks:
#3 Shaheen Shah Afridi
Historically, the Pallekele International Stadium has been slightly better for pacers than spinners. Here, it had to be a straight pick from India's Mohammed Siraj, Jasprit Bumrah, and Shaheen Shah Afridi.
Siraj has been the best in the world in the powerplay and has revolutionalized a major weakness for India. But he's unlikely to find a lot of help in this match in the first 10 overs. Bumrah is special in all phases of the game but there are still doubts over his ability to bowl at full tilt across 10 overs while fielding for 40 more.
Meanwhile, Pakistan's Shaheen is fit and in form and has made a habit of taking wickets in his first two overs with pin-point pacy yorkers, without needing a lot of swing to help him. He's also a negative match-up to India's top-order.
Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli's troubles against left-arm seam are well documented. Even Shubman Gill's batting average drops by over nine points against left-arm pace compared to right-arm. Shaheen has also taken the joint-second-most wickets (14) in death overs at an average of 11.14 since 2021.
He might pick up one or two wickets in the powerplay before coming back to take a few more at the death.
#2 Shadab Khan
For middle overs (10-40) spinners average the second-best in Pallekele for all stadiums in Sri Lanka which have hosted at least 10 ODIs. Shadab Khan has 22 wickets in this phase in 17 innings since 2021 with an average of 30.86. It's not the best in the world but among the best for the teams playing in the Asia Cup.
Most Indian middle-order batters average poorly against leg spin. That bowling type has troubled Shreyas Iyer, who's also coming off an injury, in the IPL. Even in ODIs, he averages 40.33 against leg spin compared to 58.66 against off-spin. For Hardik Pandya, the numbers read 59.75 and a whopping 131, respectively.
Rohit and Kohli haven't been at their best against leg-spin in recent times and Ishan Kishan, who'll likely bat at number five, hasn't played a lot in the middle order.
Shadab picked up four wickets against Nepal on the flat-ish Multan pitch and was brilliant with his googlies. He should enjoy bowling at Pallekele.
#1 Kuldeep Yadav
Based on his record, probable pitch conditions, form, and match-ups, Kuldeep is highly likely to have yet another cracking match against Pakistan.
For teams he has played more than one match against, the left-arm wrist-spinner averages the second-best against Pakistan - 22 (from three ODIs). He picked up two wickets each in the previous two meetings and bowled Babar Azam the first time he played against them in 2018 (before doing it again in 2019).
Kuldeep has a good match-up against Fakhar Zaman as well, who he took out in both of the last two matches. Most of the batters in the Pakistani middle order haven't played him even once, which makes him even more threatening, especially since he has added a bit of vigor to his bowling.
Kuldeep's overall form has been stunning as well: eight wickets in the last five international matches.