Sunday night’s mismatch exposed, not for the first time, the gulf between India and Pakistan in T20 cricket.
To be fair to Pakistan, they were better prepared for the 2026 T20 World Cup than they had been in the two previous editions. They came with full knowledge of playing all their games in Sri Lanka, and planned accordingly.
On paper, it looked good. It is something they had done before. At Premadasa – the same venue as Sunday night’s – against Australia in the 2012 edition, Pakistan had opened bowling with Mohammad Hafeez and (five points if you remember him) left-arm spinner Raza Hasan, before unleashing Saeed Ajmal and Shahid Afridi. Umar Gul, the lone seamer, came on sixth, after even Shoaib Malik. Chasing 150, Australia crawled to 117-7 as Pakistan sent down 18 overs of a spin, a count yet to be surpassed in T20 World Cups, women’s or men’s.
It was a template worth repeating. Pakistan were not supposed to adjust to other conditions this time. They could pick a one-dimensional bowling attack. In Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, and Saim Ayub (and even Salman Ali Agha himself), they had spinners who could bat. Abrar Ahmed was arguably their best spinner in the format. And during the Australia series, they had unleashed the “two-elbowed” Usman Tariq, the pause in whose action hides his judicious use of the bowling crease.
It was perhaps keeping the inevitability of low-scoring games in mind that they recalled Babar Azam to the T20I setup after dropping him: a low-scoring T20 on a slow surface with long boundaries often requires the same batting skills as an ODI.
In the first round, they were pooled with only one Full Member: defending champions India. While they were prepared to boycott that game, they had prepared for it and watched India’s progress. It would not have escaped them that in tricky conditions, the spinners of the USA and Namibia returned 16-0-103-8 against India and their seamers 24-0-266-7 (including Shadley van Schalkwyk’s triple-strike over).
Thus, Pakistan approached the India game with one plan: spin. They discarded Salman Mirza. Faheem Ashraf did not bowl a single over. Shaheen Shah Afridi, two.
True, India held a 7-1 record over them at the T20 World Cup. Yet, of the last three games, Pakistan had won one by ten wickets, while India needed near-miracles to win the other two.
The universe seemed to align for Pakistan this time, right?
Wrong.
India were always going to have a Plan B...
Every theory, every pre-match discussion in the buildup for Sunday’s match invariably revolved around one topic: how, in unfamiliar territory, India’s batters would struggle against Pakistan’s bowlers, especially spinners.
It was almost overlooked that this contest would amount to only 20 of the 40 overs of the game. So brilliant is India’s batting unit in a format laden with big hits that it is often forgotten that their bowlers form one of the greatest attacks T20Is have known. So strong is the Indian attack that there is room for only one of Kuldeep Yadav, the greatest contemporary exponent in the rare craft of left-arm wrist-spin, and Arshdeep Singh, their leading wicket-taker.
Kuldeep and Arshdeep compete with each other because in Varun Chakravarthy and Jasprit Bumrah, India have the best T20I spinner and fast bowler in the world. And their all-rounders, Hardik Pandya and Axar Patel, both boast of excellent T20I bowling records against Pakistan.
To combat this heavy artillery, Pakistan went in with a unit where none of the batters struck at 145, and only three at more than 135. This half of the contest – Pakistan’s batting against India’s bowling – was so heavily loaded in favour of India that it was almost forgotten.
Also read: ‘Time’s up’ – Former Pakistan captain asks for axing of stalwarts from T20I side after India defeat
In expecting their bowlers (spinners) to make up for this chasm, Pakistan as good as hoped for a miracle. On a slow, tricky pitch with large boundaries, all India needed was to bring out their Plan B, of approaching it like an ODI (or a game from T20’s early days). They did exactly that.
Ishan Kishan took risks in the powerplay. Once he fell after an innings for the ages, the middle-order batters – high-quality power hitters themselves – ensured India pushed past their self-assessed par score: “As soon as we reached 175, we thought it was 15-20 runs over par,” said Suryakumar Yadav after the match.
This was the kind of game Pakistan had spent months preparing for. They had abandoned pace for this. They set a tournament record by using six spinners. They had everything in their favour, and they threw everything they could at India.
And yet, India’s Plan B turned out to be good enough: they ended up scoring the highest T20I total (with the exception of Australia’s 182-6 against Ireland) at Premadasa since 2018.
... and Pakistan did not
Pakistan, on the other hand, did not have a Plan B when India found the boundaries first up and milked for short runs in the middle overs. In fact, they seemed to abandon their Plan A.
They opted to field with little chance of dew and after all three matches at this World Cup were won by teams batting first, and they had batted first every time when they recently swept Australia 3-0. Perhaps India’s Asia Cup chases were on their mind. They then had leg-spinners Abrar and Shadab bowling in tandem to left-handers Kishan and Tilak Varma. They held back Tariq, their supposed trump card (he bowled really well, though), until the 11th over for reasons unknown, even when India were running away with the match.
And this was supposed to be Pakistan’s half of the game.
Once the “other half” began, India settled the game with three wickets in two overs. Sahibzada Farhan, whose three sixes against Bumrah had gained much attention, did not even last until the advent of Bumrah, who took out Saim and Agha. Two of these three wickets fell to ungainly slogs against the hard length. By trying to gain early advantage (a la Abhishek Sharma, one may say), Pakistan as good as surrendered the game.
Chasing 176, Pakistan were 13-3 after two overs. When Pandya began the third over, India had already bowled more pace than Pakistan. In a match where spin was supposed to be key, India had sealed the game before bowling a single over of spin.
Few things indicated the gap between the two T20I sides more. The rest of the game – including a record victory margin between the two sides – was a mere formality.
