Asia Cup final between Pakistan and India: Salman Ali Agha’s side overcome nervous batting display to set up title showdown with SKY and Co | Cricket News

Pakistan won because they had more desire and belief, aggression and resolve. Barely had their batsmen retreated to the dressing room for the innings break that Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf and Faheem Ashraf began to warm up, emanating a sense of purpose. Some of their fielders practised high catches under the treacherous lights of Dubai.

Pakistan’s Shaheen Shah Afridi, right, celebrates with teammates after the dismissal of Bangladesh’s Parvez Hossain Emon during the Asia Cup cricket match between Bangladesh and Pakistan at Dubai International Cricket stadium in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

But neither team would make it less dramatic for each other. A penchant for self-implosiveness characterises both, committed as they are to making life difficult for them. If Pakistan are mercurial, Bangladesh are erratic, prone to mood swings. They were seldom in the pursuit. Once they lost the top six for mere 73 runs, the target of 136 seemed eons away. The rest was an impatient wait for the inevitable.

Shoddy batting

For much of their innings, Bangladesh batted as though they were walking on a bed of coal. They had neither planning nor direction, were jumpy every ball, their strokemaking inadequate to find the boundaries on a fairly consistent note and not schooled in the fine art of rotating strikes. So tenuous that Pakistan sniffed a wicket every ball. Scatterbrained running made them look comical. They struggled to rotate the strike off the spinners. At no juncture in the match did they emit hopes of chasing the target down. Some of them would rip their hair apart if they watched the replays of their dismissals. Shamim Hossain’s was banal, bunting the ball to backward point when attempting to reverse hit Afridi’s slower ball. He was the last flicker of hope, and his exit ended Bangladesh’s outside hopes of a heist.

The target was achievable. But the weight of history, the tenseness of a virtual knockout and their naturally emotional disposition all injected the chase with a nervous edge. Pakistan, stirred by the fracas against India, were inspired to produce a show that would set up the final against the favourites. Pakistan were not to cede without a fight, making it a classic who-keeps-their-nerves win contest. Bangladesh realised it in the powerplay, with Afridi spitting hell-fire in his first spell, seaming it either way and hurrying the batsmen with pace and lift from the surface, repeatedly hitting the top half of the bat. Twice, he blew the kiss of death in the powerplay, in the first over when he dislodged Parvez Hossain Emon, hurried to a pull and Towhid Hridoy with a full-length ball that angled away from him. The game ebbed and flowed, the pendulum not making any decisive swing, until Bangladesh tottered to 29 for 3 in 5.1 overs, with Haris Rauf consuming Saif Hussain, the brightest beacon of hope. From the precarious juncture, with their captain and batting glue Litton missing the game, it seemed a task too steep to scale.

The powerplay overs were a riot of mows, heaves, edges and gasps. Earlier, Bangladesh uprooted Sahibzada Farhan and Saim Ayub, the latter slumping to his fourth duck in six games. The returning Taskin Ahmed found marginal movements, especially away from the right-hander. His new-ball accomplice Mahedi Hasan shuffled his lengths to keep the jittery Pakistan batsman guessing. He delightfully dropped his length back to lure Ayub out of the crease and induced an uppish drive to the fielder’s grasp. Pakistan plummeted to 5/2. with Taskin inflicting the first blow, coaxing an uppish drive from Farhan, Pakistan’s brightest batting star in the tournament. But for captain Salman Ali Agha’s calculated swipes, a pair of nonchalant strikes over cover, Pakistan’s powerplay total would have looked more gruesome than the meagre 27 runs they ended up with.

Bangladesh’s Rishad Hossain, right, greets Pakistan’s Shaheen Shah Afridi, second right, after Pakistan won during the Asia Cup cricket match between Bangladesh and Pakistan at Dubai International Cricket stadium in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

The disciplined lengths were supported by vibrant ground fielding, slick frames in bindi-red shirts with green sleeves flinging themselves to thwart boundaries. None more electric than Saif swooping forward to pouch the air-borne cut of Talat Hussain at backward point, snaring it just inches off the ground. Pakistan slipped to 35 for 4, their knockout prospects hanging by a slim thread of hope. Hussain was leg-spinner Rishad Hossain’s second scalp. The first was the more prized one of Fakhar Zaman, deceiving him in flight and length.

Whenever Pakistan made tangible progress, Bangladesh stalled them with a wicket. Agha was holding the innings together, then burst in Mustafizur and consumed him with a devious off-cutter, that seamed away a trifle and hustled through. The sudden drop in temperature – Dubai was the coolest in a month – meant more moisture and assistance for seamers with the new ball. It could have been worse had Bangladesh not reprieved Afridi twice in an over, apart from a close lbw shout, saved only by the thread-barest margin on review. Catching in Dubai has been a headache for most teams. The floodlights are not erected on poles, but are attached to the roofs, the glare blinking from everywhere. Afridi stung with sixes, but Taskin snared him with a full toss.

The characteristically buoyant Bangladesh fans raised the roof with their throaty orchestra. Pakistan’s supporters were reduced to muffled cheers, until Afridi cudgelled a pair of sixes. Mohammad Nawaz (spilled on zero), Mohammad Haris and Faheem Ashraf reeled in the fireworks to paint some respect on Pakistan’s total. The theme of lower-order batsmen fishing them out of trouble recurred, with the last three adding 86 runs in 9.1 overs. And how useful those turned out to be.