How India can still qualify for Asia Cup 2022 Final

The Indian cricket team hasn’t gone through the best times in the last few days. Even though they made it to the Super 4 phase of the ongoing Asia Cup after winning both of their group games against Pakistan and Afghanistan, they have lost back-to-back matches against Pakistan and Sri Lanka in this Super 4 phase now.

India’s defeats in these two matches have made it very tough for them to make it to the final. They will need certain results to go their way in order to still stand a chance of qualifying for the finals.

For starters, India will need Afghanistan to beat Pakistan on Wednesday (September 7) and then they will need to defeat Afghanistan by a big margin on Thursday to stay ahead on net run rate. In the last match of the Super 4 on Friday, Sri Lanka will need to beat Pakistan, so that the Lankan team can accumulate six points from their three matches. Then each of India, Afghanistan and Pakistan will have two points to their names, and it will come down to net run rate to decide the second team that will qualify for the final. India will need to have the superior NRR in this case to book their berth in the final.

However, this looks like a very far-fetched iteration. There are high chances of India getting knocked out of this Asia Cup as that can happen simply if Pakistan beat Afghanistan on Wednesday.

India haven’t looked like the same team ever since Ravindra Jadeja got ruled out with a knee injury. They have struggled to find the necessary team balance in his absence. While they have gone with Rishabh Pant as the sole left-hander in the XI, they have picked all-rounder Deepak Hooda as the extra bowling option. Dinesh Karthik, who had been a regular part of India’s T20I XI this year, was dropped to fit in Pant and Hooda in the XI. This move has received widespread criticism from pundits and fans as well.

Skipper Rohit Sharma played a wonderful knock of 72 off just 41 deliveries in their loss to Sri Lanka whereas Virat Kohli scored a 44-ball 60 against Pakistan. Although the results haven’t gone their way, Rohit and Kohli’s return to form is a pretty good news for Indian cricket fans.