On securing their place in the ongoing T20 Asia Cup, former Indian cricket player Atul Wassan praised India for their dominating performance throughout the tournament, saying no team in the competition is near India. India has already qualified for the Asia Cup finals following wins over Pakistan and Bangladesh, and will play Sri Lanka, which has already been eliminated following two losses, to end their Super Four run undefeated and head into the final with full momentum. While speaking to ANI, Atul Wassan said, “India’s campaign in the Asia Cup is exactly as we had imagined. The way we are dominating. So I feel that the Indian team has all kinds of core competencies, and I don’t think any team is around India.”
However, Wassan expressed concern over the Indian team’s struggles with catching in the ongoing T20 Asia Cup, noting that dropping catches is a significant issue.
In the last two Super Fours fixtures, Indian fielders have been exposed to the harsh reality of taking catches under the light in Dubai. During the six-wicket triumph over Pakistan, four dropped catches and a couple of errors in the field summed up India’s bizarre effort in the field.
“Yes, there is a little concern that the catches are dropping a little more, in my opinion, because a top-class team does not leave so many catches so regularly. Sometimes there is a bad game and it happens with Australia and South Africa also leaves catches. But I have not seen so many catches dropping so regularly. Maybe I can say that it is an odd phase,” he added.
The pattern continued on Wednesday, with Saif Hassan, Bangladesh’s lone crusader, being handed four unprecedented lifelines. Indian fielders dropped him on scores of 40, 65, 66 and 67. On the fifth instance, Axar Patel didn’t overcalculate and punched Saif’s return ticket on 69(51) off Jasprit Bumrah in the 19th over.
In the ongoing tournament, India has dropped 12 catches and boasts an efficiency rate of 67.5 per cent, the second-lowest among all participating nations.
India Squad: Abhishek Sharma, Shubman Gill, Shivam Dube, Suryakumar Yadav(c), Hardik Pandya, Tilak Varma, Axar Patel, Sanju Samson(w), Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakaravarthy, Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma. NDTV Sports
