India must now win their matches against Sri Lanka and Afghanistan if they want to advance to the final of the Asia Cup 2022. The India-Pakistan Super 4 encounter on Sunday lived up to its promise as both sides fought out a thriller.
In the end, Babar Azam's team won by five wickets. Arshdeep Singh, a young bowler, missed an opportunity to give Asif Ali a life off the bowling of Ravi Bishnoi in the 18th over of the innings, which became the game's major talking point.
Later, Arshdeep came on to bowl the final over of the match, he was unable to defend 7 runs of 6 balls. However, after the match was over Arshdeep was criticised on social media for dropping the catch.
Former Indian spinner, Harbhajan Singh, came to the rescue of Arshdeep, saying no one drops catches purposely and the young seamer should not be criticised.
"Stop criticising young @arshdeepsinghh. No one drop the catch purposely..we are proud of our 🇮🇳 boys .. Pakistan played better.. shame on such people who r putting our own guys down by saying cheap things on this platform bout arsh and team.. Arsh is GOLD," Harbhajan tweeted.
Even Virat Kohli back Arshdeep
"Even when I played my first game against Pakistan in Champions Trophy, I played a bad shot and got out. Anyone can make mistakes under pressure. It is natural to feel bad. The team environment is great right now, credit for this goes to management and captain. So one must accept his mistake, address it and look forward to being in that pressure situation once again," said Kohli in a post-match press conference on Sunday.
The batter admitted that Mohammad Nawaz's innings of 42 runs in just 20 balls was a turning point in the game.
"A chance was taken by sending him up the order. To play such impactful innings is good. Had his innings been restricted to just 15-20 runs, things could have been different," he added.
