IND VS PAK - Super Four, Match 3, Asia Cup 2018

That, most definitely, was nowhere adjacent to your expectations, was it? Everytime you come out cheering to find reasons to skip school/office/meeting friends-family and this happens. Alas! But, still within a few days' time we might see both these sides lock horns in the final of #AsiaCup2018. That's a big might, mind you. Let's pin all our hopes on that and expect that both these sides save their best for the last. On that note, we [Raju Peethala along with Rishi Roy, Sriram AS, Nikhil Jadhav, Srivathsa and our scorer Vinod] bid you goodbye. Hope you enjoyed our coverage. Go owls!! *Back to Monday blues in a while*

Shikhar Dhawan, Man of the Match: I enjoyed my game and I've been in good touch and just wanted to make the most of it. It's a good batting track and I have enjoyed the way I was batting. It was sensible and liked the balance of it. Pakistan got a good bowling attack and I knew that as openers we have to stay because they have got good pace and once I got set and I kept carrying on. As I've mentioned I wanted to be sensible with my shots and I've thrown it away in the past and I have learnt the lessons the hard way. That's the good for me and it's nice to have that balance. When you play 20 overs it get easy. The plan was not to lose wickets in the first 10 overs and you might not get runs easily early on Rohit played an amazing knock today and he's very good at converting those 50s into 100s and that's something I've learnt from him. It's good that we both value our wicket. Last game we both scored runs but didn't have the hunger and we knew we shouldn't be missing out on big knocks and I'm glad we did the job for the team today.

Rohit Sharma, winning captain (2/2): The entire bowling unit stuck to their task and hats off to them. Repeated performances are challenging in these conditions and once again I don't want to take any credit from the bowlers. With Shikhar I don't need to talk much. It's important to let him be himself. We have batted enough to know each other to start off like that and we clearly know our roles. We always knew that the new batsman will find it difficult to keep going straightaway and Shikhar and I knew it. Nothing is easy (talking about the pulls for six). I've really worked hard on those kind of shots. When it comes off it really looks nice and I've gotten out a few times playing such shots. I back myself to play those shots. It's important to put pressure on bowlers. They have one of the great bowling attacks. Taking nothing away from their bowling and they have troubled us in the past. So it is important to understand the importance of the new ball and play accordingly.

Rohit Sharma, winning captain (1/2): Challenging conditions, we knew it was going to be tough. I don't want to take any credit from the boys, all of them showed great character, well done to the boys. We spoke about leaving past performances behind and give our best today and that is what happened. I think he's (Bumrah) matured as a bowler now, played great amount of cricket he understands his bowling and I think that's very very important for any individual; he understands what fields he needs to set and gotta keep it tight. Bhuvi also did the same. It was important to keep creating such pressure all the time, never wanted to let them off the hook. All our bowling unit played a great amount of cricket. The spinners also did the same. When you keep them in control that's the kind of targets you get to chase. When Hardik got injured, the challenge was to field four spinners and we thought about a few combinations (3 seamers, 4 spinners) and in these conditions it is important to take the pace and not give much pace. For Jadeja to come out and perform like that is amazing.

Biggest wins for Ind vs Pak (balls left):
126 Dubai, 2018 (Tar: 163)
105 Multan, 2006 (162)
92 Toronto, 1997 (117)
63 Dubai, 2018 (238) *
53 Dhaka, 1998 (213)

Sarfraz Ahmed, Pakistan captain: We made it tough for ourselves by dropping those catches. We were 20-25 runs short and if we would have held on to our catches we could have possibly made things interesting. The boys are doing all the hard work but they're not able to take those crucial catches. The wicket was a bit difficult to play on in the afternoon as the cracks had widened up. Wasn't easy for a new batsman walking in. Had we got early wickets, this chase would have been certainly difficult. We have been losing a lot of wickets in the early overs and hence it becomes difficult to recover from such situations. The way they batted, all credit to them. Rohit and Dhawan were exceptional. They have shown better skills as compared to us. We need to work a lot on our skill level if at all we want to get into the final. It's a do-or-die match against Bangladesh, hopefully we'll come out on top.

22:23 Local Time, 18:23 GMT, 23:53 IST: Rayudu and Rohit mosey back towards the dressing room sporting a relaxed smile. Chahal and Kuldeep engage in a friendly pushy-pokey banter as Dhoni grins widely like a big brother in a family full of siblings. If that doesn't define you the ease at which India have gone about things today, I'm afraid nothing else will. Momentum, they say, is a vital factor in sport and India once again exemplified why the phrase is so over-hyped and overused. They've pulled things back with the ball in the final 8 overs (44/3) and never looked back since. Although the conditions showed a bit of allegiance to the side batting second, Rohit and Dhawan - make no mistake - took nothing for granted; they respected good deliveries and pounced on the bad ones to put the chase on a platter. Both engineered a 210-run opening stand asides from their magnificent hundreds and with that, India are just one yawning step away from sealing a slot in the finals.

Shoaib Malik to Rayudu, 1 run, a leading-edge to cover, but doesn't matter. A quick single, doesn't matter. India - 2, Pakistan - 0. Win by 9 wickets and India continue to boss #AsiaCup2018; the only undefeated team in this tournament

Shoaib Malik to Rayudu, no run, looks to work this to leg and gets a thin outside edge on the push, rolls away to short third

Shoaib Malik to Rohit, 1 run, floated up on leg-stump, nudged to the leg-side

Harsha Bhogle: For all the hype...

Hasan Ali to Rayudu, no run, wobbly yorker length delivery on middle, jammed right back at the bowler

Hasan Ali to Rohit, 1 run, fuller and wider of off, Rohit opens the bat face and silks the drive past a diving backward point

Hasan Ali to Rohit, no run, looks to finish with a flourish and attempts a front foot pull against a length ball, miscued to mid-on

Hasan Ali to Rohit, no run, pins this in the blockhole, Rohit gets low and squeezes it out into the off-side

Hasan Ali to Rayudu, 1 run, opens the bat face and punch-drives the length ball through covers

Hasan Ali to Rayudu, 2 runs, short outside off, Rayudu gets on top of it and splices the pull through mid-wicket

Just a hit away

Shoaib Malik to Rayudu, 1 run, 80ks, flat outside leg, Rayudu swipes in the air and it lands way short of the incoming fielder at deep backward square

Shoaib Malik to Rayudu, no run, on the back foot, rolls his wrists and tucks to mid-wicket

Shoaib Malik to Rohit, 1 run, gives himself a bit of a leeway outside off, stays leg-side of the ball and unveils a drive to long-off