The night ended in smiles and hugs for Pakistan. A landslide victory, by 93 runs, was inflicted on Oman, whose fight and resistance with the ball were not enough to quell a vibrant spin attack from cutting a swathe through the heart of their batting. The margin of victory would suggest that Pakistan are closer to reconquering their perch among the elites. But as much as their spin bowling offered promise, their anarchic batting would pose headaches before the Sunday showdown against India.
The consortium of spinners have verve and variety. Saim Ayub is an unorthodox off-spinner, trading carrom balls. Mohammed Nawaz, the kingpin, is a left-arm spin metronome. Wily and wicked, his modulation of pace is a deft as a sitar maestro with his pitches. Abrar Ahmed’s leg-breaks sting as much as his googly. He delightfully varies his pace and angles. Sufiyan Muqeem is not a prodigious turner, but the left-arm wrist spinner has subtle variations and bowls with control. They shared six wickets for 40 runs in 11.4 overs and left the deadhorse to be flogged by the seamers, thus kicking off the Asia Cup in triumphant mood.
But the bowling, albeit against a modest batting firmament, only masked the insufficiencies of their batsmen. The exhibition with the bat was a parody on their near-unbroken legacy of Oriental batsmanship, of the rubbery-wristed virtuosos and gap-splitting touch players. But for Mohammad Haris’s punchy enterprise, Pakistan would have sunk in a sea of sharks. His colleagues, Fakhar Zaman and Haris Nawaz aside, illustrated startling incompetence. A handful of contenders vied for the worst shot of the evening. Saim Ayub swiped across the line to left-arm seamer Shah Faisal’s routine inswinger. There was no frightening pace, little audacious swing. But, facing his first ball, was futilely inclined to heave him over the bubbly roof to the Sheikh Zayed Road outside. The score of 11/1 could have been 11/2 but Aamir Kaleem dropped a sitter offered by Sahibzada Farhan. The lapse hurt them only temporarily, as Sahibzada wretchedly struggled for his timing, ate up balls and strutted to run-a-ball 29, manufacturing only a lone boundary. He heaved and hoicked, but the connection was feeble, the bat handle often slipping out of his greasy palms.
2️⃣ in 2️⃣ for Aamir Kaleem 🤩
Mohammad Haris gone, skipper Agha Salman follows 🚶
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The crawl piled pressure on the middle order. But that was not an excuse for captain Salman Agha to drag the most benign full toss, at a favourable height, to the deep midwicket fielder. He was so numb that he did not curse himself. He stood frozen, even as coach Mike Hesson, frowning, busily noted his observations on the notepad. By the end of the game, he might have run out of pages, jotting down the mistakes of his batsmen.
A ball ago had Kaleem, making amends for his spillage in the powerplay ejected Haris. As pugnacious as his knock was, his dismissal mode was abysmal. When striking so sweetly and powerfully down the ground, the instinct to invent seized him. To put it mildly, he messed up the stroke and slashed the ball onto the stumps. He was livid. The crowd was livider. But without his 66, Pakistan could have sunk to a new low, the unkindest cut before the game against India on Sunday. The meagre but enthusiastic crowd stood petrified, the peppy chartbusters the stadium DJ played barely registered in their ears.
Oman open their account at #DPWorldAsiaCup2025 with a bang 💥
Watch #PAKvOMAN, LIVE NOW on the Sony Sports Network TV channels & Sony LIV.#SonySportsNetwork #DPWorldAsiaCup2025 pic.twitter.com/XF7LqIAJ4y
— Sony Sports Network (@SonySportsNetwk) September 12, 2025
In the end, it took the old guard Fakhar Zaman, the generation-straddling unicorn in Pakistan, to crunch a few boundaries to propel the team past 150. Hasan Nawaz too contributed 19 off 10 balls to inject impetus into a flailing performance. But before the India encounter, Pakistan think tank have a lot to brood and deliberate on. The bowlers they would countenance would be a few upgrades superior. Oman’s bowlers showed grit and heart, but there was nothing exemplary about them. They largely stuck to the lines, maintained tight lengths. There was no magic or mystique about them. Jasprit Bumrah and Kuldeep Yadav would be enthused bowling against them, arguably the most starless batting group of Pakistan this century. Recent upswing in fortunes had offered hope, but this show of ineptness would whistle back the winds of dejection, a sense of creepy foreboding.
Haris, a bright spot
The lone bright spot was Haris, who was waddling through a lean phase. His last 11 outings had mustered only 52 runs. He improved the tally by 14 runs in this innings alone. His early strikes were all power-laden. Later, after trialling and erroring, he rediscovered his touch and essayed some gorgeous strokes. None as dexterous than a delicate sweep off medium pacer Hassnain Shah. His 16-run haul off the last powerplay over lifted them from 31/11 in five overs to 47/1 in six and imparted some momentum into it. Thus, the signs are clear. Pakistan’s best hopes of going deep into the tournament lies with their bowlers. Or they need their batsmen to put on more purposeful shifts.
