India and Pakistan clashed in the crucial Asia Cup 2023 Super 4 fixture but once again rain emerged as a winner to play spoilsport at Colombo’s R Premadasa Stadium on Sunday, September 10. India were batting at 147 for 2 in 24.1 overs when rain halted the game. Officials called the game off after the second inspection at 8:30 PM IST as rain interrupted the game for the third time.
Pakistan skipper Babar Azam won the toss and elected to field first in their second Super 4 match. Babar stayed with the same playing eleven having already announced a team on Saturday but Rohit Sharma made two changes to India’s playing eleven. Returning Jasprit Bumrah replaced Mohammed Shami in an expected change but to everyone’s surprise, KL Rahul came in place of Shreyas Iyer with the latter suffering from back spasm.
Babar’s decision to bowl first seemed unsuccessful with both Rohit and Shubman thrashing Pakistan’s in-form pace attack from the start. The duo added 121 runs in just 100 balls for the opening wicket with both bringing their second consecutive fifties in the tournament. Rohit scored 56 runs off 49 balls as he fell short of 22 runs from reaching the 10,000-run mark in ODIs. However, the Indian skipper broke Sachin Tendulkar’s record to register the most fifties in Asia Cup (ODI) history to add another milestone to his name.
Shadab Khan gave Pakistan a breakthrough with Rohit’s wicket in the 17th over and then speedster Haris Rauf dismissed Gill in the following over to balance the game. But India’s next batters Virat Kohli and KL Rahul kept India ahead in the game with an unbeaten 24-run stand for the third wicket. Rahul scored 17* off 28 balls to complete 2,000 runs in ODIs while Kohli was batting at 8* off 16 balls before rain interrupted the game.
Meanwhile, groundstaff did everything possible to dry the wet outfield with rain playing hide and seek game. Rain initially stopped but there were visible wet patches at the cover and mid-on/off area. There were two full inspections by the on-field umpires but they were not able to resume the game due to wet outfields.
The organisers had reserved a day for such a scenario and now the remaining game will be played on Monday (September 11). India will begin their innings from 24.1 overs and the full 50-over game will be played on Monday. However, if rain persists on a reserved day then both teams will share points.
India Playing XI: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj
Pakistan Playing XI: Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Babar Azam (c), Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Agha Salman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Faheem Ashraf, Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf
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