I don't think Rohit is able to read or understand Shaheen at all: Shoaib Akhtar

There was plenty of excitement and some intriguing action on the field during the high-voltage Asia Cup 2023 fixture between India and Pakistan on Saturday, September 2. The Men in Blue started their campaign against the arch-rivals in not the best of the ways as after winning the toss, skipper Rohit Sharma took a daring call to bat first in overcast conditions. However, it backfired for the team as Pakistani bowling kept bowling a tight line and length making it difficult for the Indian top order to score freely. As a result at one stage, they were reeling at 66/4 in 14.1 overs.

In the same vein, skipper Rohit Sharma was expected to play his natural game and try to take more risks in a bid to score quicker keeping in mind the DLS (Duckworth Louis Stern) method factor which was always on the cards, keeping in mind the bad weather. There has been plenty of debate around Sharma not being able to score with consistency in the ODI format for Team India. Moreover, Indian batters having a difficult time against the left-arm quicks was also a point of concern ahead of the intercontinental championship.

The same became evident when Shaheen Afridi breathed fire during his initial burst and cleaned up Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli to give Pakistan a dream start. While Kohli has been out of his lean patch, the debate around the skipper failing to fire at the top is still a burning issue. In the same vein, the former Pakistan pacer, Shoaib Akhtar, expressed his thoughts post the India versus Pakistan Asia Cup 2023 game. Akhtar believes that Rohit Sharma has failed to read Afridi especially when he is bowling with the new ball. Notably, Sharma could only manage to score 11 runs off 22 balls and got cleaned up after a fiery in-swinger from Afridi went through the gate.

"I don't think Rohit is able to read or understand Shaheen at all. The visual of Rohit Sharma being beaten like this was not good, he is a far better player than this. Rohit can bat much better than this, I think he is worrying too much," Akhtar stated on his YouTube channel.

Interestingly enough, even during the T20 World Cup in 2021, Shaheen Afridi bowled an inswinging yorker to Rohit Sharma and got castled upfront. Hence, Sharma has had a hard time against the left-arm quicks with Afridi being one of the most lethal bowlers in world cricket.

India versus Pakistan Asia Cup 2023 game got washed out after first innings

Speaking of the game, after India lost four wickets, the young wicketkeeper-batter Ishan Kishan, and all-rounder Hardik Pandya, got their heads down to create a vital partnership against Pakistan. The duo put up a vital 138-run stand for the fifth wicket to bring India back into the game. Both Kishan (82 off 81 balls) and Pandya (87 off 90 balls) scored fifties in the process. Post that pacer Naseem Shah ran through the tail to help Pakistan restrict India to 266 runs. However, the rain kept playing possums which led to the game ending in a no result.

With this Pakistan have qualified for the Super 4s round in the Asia Cup 2023, while team India will look to win against Nepal in their next fixture with a big margin to stay on course in terms of the net run rate factor (NRR) should it decide the fate of the tournament in the days ahead to come.