Asia Cup 2018: Three mistakes India made against Hong Kong

India started their Asia Cup campaign with a victory which was expected. But was this victory satisfying? It took 34.1 overs for the bowlers to break Hong Kong’s opening stand and one has to say that they got out of the jail in this encounter. In case, Anshuman Rath and Nizakat Khan had played a few overs more, Rohit Sharma and Co. would’ve lost the game rather easily. Moreover, the amount of pressure they would’ve faced in the game against Pakistan is unimaginable.

Somehow, they managed to sneak through a 26-run victory and while all the eyes were on the high-voltage clash, many questions must be hovering in the mind of every fan. Did India take this game lightly? Will they be able to win the tournament with this team? As of now, they will be gearing up for the inconsequential match against their arch-rivals but will have to avoid the mistakes they did in this game.

Here we highlight the three mistakes India did against Hong Kong:

1. Team selection

Everyone including the former cricketers were touting this match as a warm-up for India. The way Pakistan had rolled over Hong Kong, many predicted that the Men in Blue would be even more clinical in their approach. But when the toss took place, Rohit Sharma surprised everyone. They went in with only six specialist batsmen including MS Dhoni.

There was no KL Rahul in the line-up and suddenly the batting looked brittle after the top three once again. The situation was even worse in the bowling attack. Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya were rested and the under-cooked bowlers took the field which almost cost them the game. Bhuvneshwar Kumar lacked match-practice and Khaleel Ahmed took some time to get into his groove. The biggest disappointment was Shardul Thakur who looked completely bereft of ideas.

So the question is, why the team management didn’t play their main players and get them acclimatised to the conditions?