Pakistan played its cards in the very first over – captain Salman Agha, the unlikely choice to get the contest underway. The move paid immediate dividends, with the off-spinner forcing Abhishek Sharma to mistime a shot to mid-on. The animated roars from the Pakistan fielders who ran towards their skipper signified the importance of conquering that mini phase of play.
The script looked all too familiar to the Asia Cup final in 2025, when India had to rely on Tilak Varma’s judicious acceleration to chase down 147 in Dubai. But Ishan Kishan had other plans. The Jharkhand batter sprang into action with a vicious pull shot off Shaheen Shah Afridi’s first delivery, depositing it in the stands at square leg. A streaky boundary through fine leg followed.
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Pakistan course-corrected immediately, bringing on spin from both ends. Despite balls turning prodigiously off a slightly shorter length, Kishan wasn’t backing away from his instinct. A slew of plays and misses were interspersed with boundaries to the legside. Abrar Ahmed began his spell with a couple of balls centimetres short of good length and Kishan was in no mood to relent. The diminutive batter threw his weight on the backfoot to access front of square on both sides of the wicket.
Abrar’s second over brought more misery for Pakistan. Kishan played around with the bowler’s lengths to collect three consecutive boundaries, racing away to a fifty in just 27 balls in the process. Shadab Khan, the other leg-spinner in the team, was treated no differently. His attempts to toss it up in the hope of extracting a miscued shot bore no fruit. Two thunderous sweeps through the legside gave the batter ten runs in two balls.
The ball was turning considerably. Pakistan had six spin options at its disposal. India’s best T20I batter was back in the hut without scoring. Yet, the score read 82/1 in eight overs. Then came a moment that turned the game on its head.
Kishan required medical intervention after cramping up at the end of the eighth over. Fighting the demons on the pitch and the inconvenience in his right leg was too much to ask from the wicket-keeper batter. He departed just four balls after that forced recess, undone by a snorter from Saim Ayub that pitched down leg and spun 5.622 degrees to knock off the bail above leg and middle stump. Kishan had contributed 76 runs in the second-wicket partnership with Tilak, which accounted for 87 runs.
The introduction of more finger spin after Kishan’s dismissal brought Pakistan back into the contest. Eight overs of Mohammed Nawaz and Usman Tariq accounted for 18 dot balls. Tilak and skipper Suryakumar could only manoeuvre the ball around at just over run a ball. India needed a couple of big hits from the bat of Shivam Dube and Rinku Singh to breach the 170-run mark at the end.
Without the brilliance of ‘pocket rocket’ Kishan, India might have succumbed to a web of spin and found itself well short of putting scoreboard pressure on its neighbour. With all the pre-match discussion surrounding Usman Tariq and his unconventional action, it was Kishan’s individual brilliance that came ‘out of syllabus’.
Published on Feb 15, 2026
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