MUST WIN SUPER FOUR SCENARIO
By Srian Obeyesekere
Sri Lanka and Pakistan pick themselves from the crumbs of defeat in a similar necessarily must win super four scenario of the 2025 Asia Cup on a tricky slow surface at Abu Dhabi’s Al Zayed Stadium of both having to scale a hitherto slippery uneven fallible slope despite coming through in their respective groups with two wins each.
Sri Lanka stares at a lurking dagger in an unplugged batting combination Skipper Charith Asalanka and Head Coach Sanath Jayasuriya keep fiddling with unsolved best exposed by the defeat to a Bangladesh side the Lankans had well and truly nailed in the group match, and should have done with in the most crucial of super four showdowns, the loss resultantly reaching threatening point of extinction if Asalanka and company do not win their next two games against a highly unpredictable Pakistan and giants India that has put them in a now or never pressure cooker situation to coming good.
Pakistan, for their part, find themselves on the very testing brink of coming out of the uncertain half hearted cocoon of surmounting two defeats to arch rivals India. The manner by which the Indians brazenly disposed off Pakistan making light of a challenging target in Monday’s super four game did highlight the huge difference between the two star wars sides in a traditionally steeped rivalry that has taken a no handshake soured twist between two nations politically devided.
Of course, in that defeat Salman Ali Agha’s team that has been battling a shaky period in Pakistan’s cricket with its once super star batsman at the centre of that mess up by a running form rut of Babar Azam and his replacement Rizwan too axed in questionable knee jerk decisions at the top as to whether haste has made waste in dumping the country’s most gifted and proven batsman by breathing down on him instead of giving him the freedom and encouragement to riding such a bad patch; a factor common with the world’s greatest of batsmen as the slogan has it that ‘form is temporary, class is permanent.’
Indeed, the Pakistanis will need to shed the bad blood of snubbed handshakes by the Indians which was not in the spirit of cricket famously dubbed, ‘the gentleman’s game’ to as shedding the handicaps if they are to mount the serious type of cricket worthy to beating a Lankan side driven by individual brilliance in the batting, but a better oiled bowling attack with prime leg spinner Wanindu Hasaranga back in the fold.
Head to head Pakistan ants up 13 to 10. But Sri Lanka won their last two T20s between the two sides to winning the Asia Cup when they last met as far back as 2022.
But in a fast galloping short format past result equations come to naught where the toughest prevail on the day.
