(Cricket news) India lost their opening Asia Cup Super 4s game against Pakistan by 5 wickets. Pakistan got their revenge after they were also defeated by 5 wickets in the opening group stage match. Both teams were handed massive blows before the game as India's Ravindra Jadeja and Pakistan's Shahnawaz Dahani were ruled out due to injury. Pakistan roped in Muhammad Hasnain to replace Dahani. India brought in Deepak Hooda purely because of his batting prowess as it was pretty clear that he wasn't going to bowl 4 overs. Rohit Sharma decided to trust Hardik Pandya to bowl 4 overs while Rishabh Pant was preferred over Dinesh Karthik as he was the only left hander in the side. Avesh Khan was ruled out due to illness and India went with Ravi Bishnoi ahead of Ravichandran Ashwin. Babar Azam won the toss and put India into bat first. 

Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul got India off to a flying start. Naseem Shah had trouble for India in the last match but the Indians decided to take him on from the very start this time. Both the openers scored 28 runs in no time to set the tone for their side. Rohit Sharma was always going to be positive but Rahul's approach was a little bit of a surprise but it is something that was asked from him for a long time. Pakistan did recover well by dismissing Rohit in the last over of the power play and Rahul in the first over after the powerplay. From then on it was the Virat Kohli show till the end. After being out of form for so long the former skipper is finally getting back to his normal self. 

Kohli scored 60 off 44 balls to anchor the Indian innings. Even though he wasn't in control of all his shots it was classic Kohli in a sense that his body language was positive. He hit 4 fours and a six but the highlight was his running between the wickets. Kohli ran really hard between wickets to get quick singles and twos which is what he always has done. The only issue was that he didn't have much support from the other end as India's middle order didn't fire as much. India ended up with a score of 181/7 which is a little underwhelming considering the start that they got. Shadab Khan was the pick of the bowlers with the figures of 2/31. Naseem Shah, Muhammad Hasnain, Haris Rauf and Mohammad Nawaz all picked up a wicket each.

Pakistan chased down the total with 1 ball left and 5 wickets in hand. Mohammad Rizwan was the star of the night as he scored 71 off 51 balls hitting 6 fours and 2 sixes. He had injured himself while keeping and was struggling to run but still managed to anchor the innings. The Man of the Match was Mohammad Nawaz who was promoted up the order at number 4. The left hander scored 42 off just 20 balls to accelerate Pakistan's run chase. The turning point of the chase was in the 17th over when Pakistan were 151/4. Asif Ali hit Ravi Bishnoi's ball high up in the air but the simple catch was dropped at fine leg by Arshdeep Singh. Despite dropping the catch Arshdeep didn't lose confidence and came into bowl the last overs where he had to defend 7 runs. He bowled a decent over but in the end didn't have too many runs to work with.

All 5 Indian bowlers picked up a wicket but were expensive at the same time. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hardik Pandya and Yuzvendra Chahal all conceded over 40 runs. Ravi Bishnoi in his first big tournament game bowled really well as he gave away only 26 runs and dismissed Babar Azam. Arshdeep Singh also had a good outing with a ball as he finished with the figures of 1/27 but unfortunately his drop catch is one of the prominent reasons why India lost the match. India don't have much time to reflect on the loss as they play Sri Lanka on Tuesday. Sri Lanka defeated Afghanistan in the first match therefore it is a very crucial match for the men in blue to stay alive in the Super 4s.

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