Emerging Teams Asia Cup: Pakistan suffer seven-run defeat against India

India A defeated Pakistan Shaheens by seven runs in a nail-biting encounter of the ACC Emerging Teams Asia Cup 2024 at Al Amerat Cricket Stadium in Oman on Saturday. 

Mohammad Haris' Shaheens concluded their innings on 176/7 in reply of the 184-run target set by India A. 

Earlier, India A had won the toss and invited the Shaheens to bowl first. The side went on to score 183 runs at the loss of eight wickets during their innings. 

In reply, Pakistan began their chase and received a blow on the second ball of the innings as skipper Muhammad Haris was dismissed after hitting a six.

His replacement, Omair Yousuf, too procured a short innings of two runs on seven balls.

The pitch was then handled by opener Yasir Khan (33 off 22 balls with one four and three sixes) and Qasim Akram (27 runs off 21 balls with four boundaries).

Within 10 overs, Pakistan had lost four of their batters, including their captain as the Indian bowlers continued their charge.

Pakistan managed to cross the 100-run mark in the 13th over with Arafat Minhas and Haider Ali at the crease.

After Haider’s dismissal, Minhas was joined by Abdul Samad who smashed 25 runs off 15 balls.

The duo was Pakistan's last hope in defeating arch-rivals and after their dismissal, no hopes were left as India registered a win over Pakistan by seven runs.

In the first innings, Pakistan kept a steady flow of wickets but the Indian batters continued scoring even as they fell.

Their top four batters in the order added commendable runs to the scoreboard with Abhishek Sharma scoring 35 off 22, wicketkeeper-batter Prabhsimran Singh scoring 36 off 19, captain Tilak Varma finished his innings at 44 runs off 35 balls and Nehal Wadhera concluded his innings after scoring a 25 off 22 deliveries.

Things slowed down from the Indian side but for Haris and Co, the damage was already done as they continued taking wickets.

India concluded their innings with a score of 183/8 and a tremendous run-rate of 9.15.

Pakistan’s Sufiyan Muqeem grabbed two wickets as Mohammad Imran, Zaman Khan, Minhas and Akram took one scalp each.

Playing XIs

Pakistan Shaheens: Haider Ali, Mohammad Haris (wk, captain), Yasir Khan, Omair bin Yousuf, Qasim Akram, Abdul Samad, Arafat Minhas, Abbas Afridi, Mohammad Imran Jnr, Zaman Khan, and Sufyan Muqeem.

India A: Tilak Varma, Abishek Sharma, Prabh Simran Singh, Nehal Wadhera, Ayush Badoni, Ramandeep Singh, Nishant Sindhu, Rahul Chahar, Anshul Kamboj, Vaibhav Arora, and Rasikh Salam.