Kuldeep Shines, PAK Batters Flop: Takeaways From India's Dominant Win In Asia Cup

Anurag Dasgupta

India secure dominant win [Source: @bcci/x.com] India secure dominant win [Source: @bcci/x.com]

As expected, India toyed with Pakistan and dismantled the opponent to clinch an easy win in the Asia Cup 2025 match in Dubai. India were the favourites for the clash, and they proved their mettle with a one-sided, 7-wicket dominant win to secure their place in the Super 4 of the marquee Asian tournament.

The Indian bowlers ran riot, particularly Kuldeep Yadav, who was once again instrumental with his wily spin-bowling. The batters then completed the formality as the target of 128 was chased down with relative ease and 25 balls to spare. The gap between the two teams continue to grow with each passing game, and here are the 3 key takeaways from the India vs Pakistan contest.

1) India has the best spin-unit in the world

In Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy, and Axar Patel, India has the best spin-bowling unit in white-ball unit. The trio complements each other really well, and they have a variety in their arsenal that troubled the Pakistani batters. While Kuldeep took 3 for 18, Chakravarthy scalped a solitary wicket, and Axar ended with two wickets as well.

They gave away just 60 runs in the combined 12 overs as Pakistan had no answer to the guile and magic of the spin-trio.

2) Abhishek, the pioneer of India's new-aggressive cricket

On a wicket where almost every single batter struggled, Abhishek Sharma looked to have been cut from a different cloth as the southpaw smacked Shaheen Afridi for 22 runs and won the game for India in the power-play.

Against Pakistan, he scored 31 off 13 balls and had a strike rate of 238, and this is the way Gautam Gambhir wants his young T20I team to play. An aggressive brand of cricket, and Abhishek is the pioneer of it, as the youngster ended the chase inside the first 6 overs, and made a mockery of the Pakistan attack.

3) Intent? what intent from Pakistan?

Pakistan removed Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan from the team, and they wanted to play an aggressive brand of cricket. However, Pakistan failed to translate words into action against India; the intent word was clearly missing.

At one stage, Pakistan was going at less than 6 runs per over, and it wasn’t until Shaheen came to the crease that Pakistan got some wings and the scoring rate improved a bit. Against weaker teams, their slow and steady approach might work, but against teams like India, Pakistan lacked a clear-cut aggressive plan as the batters lost the plot for them.