It’s a wake-up call: Sarfraz

DUBAI: Sarfraz Ahmed has promised that his team will bounce back after an eight-wicket drubbing against India in a high-profile yet insignificant Asia Cup match Wednesday night.

Terming the defeat a timely wake-up call, Sarfraz said that his team will not repeat the same mistakes when it meets old-rivals India in an Asia Cup Super Fours clash in Dubai on Sunday.

“It is nice to get a wake-up call early on in the tournament and we would not want to commit the same mistakes. We will come back better prepared next time,” Sarfraz told reporters after Pakistan were beaten in all departments of the game by India.

The only saving grace for Pakistan was that the loss had little bearing on their Asia Cup campaign as both teams had already qualified for the next stage of the six-nation tournament.

The Indians first restricted Pakistan to 162 and then raced to the victory target with 126 balls to spare.

Pakistan were not only unable to tackle India’s pace twins Jaspreet Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar but also faltered against their spin battery which got a last-minute addition in Kedar Jadhav’s unconventional side-arm off-breaks.

“We had prepared for the two spinners but the third one chipped in with wickets,” Sarfraz said referring to Jadhav, who had to bowl after Hardik Pandya injured his back during the Pakistani innings.

Pakistan lost their opening pair — Fakhar Zaman and Imam-ul-Haq cheaply — and was even unable to capitalise on a sold third-wicket stand featuring Babar Azam and Shoaib Malik.

“The start was not at all good. We lost two wickets in the first five overs. We got some momentum in the middle but again lost wickets and could not recover,” Sarfraz said.

“We batted poorly and all of us played poor shots to get out.”

While Sarfraz was struggling to justify his team’s meek showing in the big match, his Indian counterpart Rohit Sharma was over the moon.

“Right from the start, we were quite disciplined. We wanted to learn from the mistakes which we made in the last game. Today was a great game for the bowling department because I knew the conditions weren’t great for it. But we kept the conditions aside and did the job. We stuck to our plans,” Sharma said.

Sharma, who is leading India in the absence of regular captain Virat Kohli, gave full credit to his bowlers over their role in sealing victory.

“Lots of improvements from the last game, spinners kept it tight, got the odd breakthroughs.

The bowlers took wickets early as well. It was important to do that because we wanted to make sure not to make things easy for them. We spoke about not giving room to the batsmen and it worked,” he said.

“The first few overs were disciplined and the spinners took over. Once they had a partnership, we discussed not to panic and it was important to just stick to the plans.”

He also hailed Jadhav’s role. “He (Jadhav) has been working on his bowling, takes his bowling very seriously. Every now and then, he does the job which is crucial.”