India survived a scare as Oman almost pulled off the biggest upset of the Asia Cup as they thrashed the world champions’ bowling lineup all around the field. While they scraped through with a 21-run victory, India would be pretty concerned about their subpar bowling attack, taking just 4 wickets of Oman who managed to score 167 runs.
Aamir Kaleem and Hammad Mirza both scored scintillating half centuries with their 93-run stand broken by Harshit Rana in the 18th over. Before that partnership, captain Jatinder Singh also chipped in with a decent 32-run innings before he was sent back by Kuldeep Yadav. Mirza, meanwhile, was snapped up by Hardik Pandya in the 19th over.
With 34 runs left in the last over, it was too tall a task for Oman with Arshdeep Singh, playing his first Asia Cup 2025 match, became the first Indian and fastest pacer to reach 100 T20I wickets after he snapped up the wicket of Oman batter Vinayak Shukla for 1 run.
The closest Indian to him are teammates Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya who have 92 and 96 wickets respectively in the shortest format. Oman, meanwhile, started steadily against India, scoring 21 runs off the first three overs.
Earlier, Sanju Samson made good use of much needed time in the middle as skipper Suryakumar Yadav decided to give every other playing member a hit in the centre, taking India to a healthy 188 for eight.
With vice-captain Shubman Gill getting out cheaply, the one drop slot warranted a right hander and accordingly Samson (56 off 45 balls) got a chance to bat in the top 3.
It wasn’t the smoothest of his innings on a slightly slowish track but three fours and three sixes off would certainly give him confidence ahead of the business week.
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Of all his big hits, the first maximum off left-arm seamer Shah Faisal, a pick-up shot over widish long-on stood out but lack of match time showed as he did struggle to get going.
Tilak Varma (29 off 18 balls), coming in at No.7, also did his bit to prop up the score.
It was pretty obvious that India would like to bat first and make full use of the 20 overs before the start of the Super 4s giving sufficient time to their under-utilized middle-order ahead of Pakistan game on Sunday.
The batting order was rightly shuffled giving Samson his favourite slot, promoting Axar Patel (26 off 13 balls) ahead of specialist left-hander Tilak or batting all-rounder Shivam Dube (5).
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Skipper Surya, who pushed himself down to No. 11, also gave Hardik Pandya a chance to get a few hits but he was unfortunately run-out at the non-striker’s end after a Samson straight drive deflected off bowler’s hands to hit the stumps.
