First week of Asia Cup 2023: India’s top-order debacle to Pakistan's deadly pace

The first week of the Asia Cup is behind us and it has substantially been a bland commencement to the cricket fever that is about to kick in next month The tournamentrsquos struggles to gain recognition in the midst of sporadic bilateral contests over the last decade does not go unnoticed Yet the current edition brings a lot more to the table than one can imagineWhile the waning of 50over cricket is no secret the Asia Cup 2023 is a final gateway for five of the six teams barring Nepal to cast aside their selection dilemma ahead of the ICC Cricket Menrsquos Worldrsquos Cup starting October 5There are bilateral contests to name a few ahead of the global event but nothing matches the highoctane thrill of IndiaPakistan IndiaBangladesh or Sri LankaPakistan encounters The 18day tournament will guarantee an atmosphere of a multination tournament closely mirroring that of the fastapproaching World CupThe matchups of heavyweights taking on the minnows expectedly generated a lukewarm response among fans in the opening week while the persistent rain added to the gloom every now and then The one exception to the mediocre set of early matches could have been the IndiaPakistan affair but Kandy weather had other plans in store Traditionally each time the two countries take the field the frenzy among fans reaches unheardof heightsBut Pallekele looked different on Saturday The rows of empty seats in the stands and on the grass banks were shockingly appalling Following a 50over inning that saw highly oscillating fortunes and a belowpar toporder performance the palpable excitement around Indiarsquos quest for a possible tenth victory over Pakistan in the Asia Cup across formats turned into a damp squibOver the next two weeks rivalries would get renewed and new heroes would emerge ndash but for the moment what follows is MidDayrsquos perspective on the key observations from week one of the Asia CupIndia frets over fielding lapses amp leftarm pacersJasprit Bumrahrsquos return after a long injury layoff ensured India had fast bowling options at their disposal The tournament has given enough time to the management to observe how the pace duo of Bumrah and Prasidh Krishna have reacted to the increased workload in the energysapping Sri Lankan humidity But what is truly puzzling is the depths to which the Men in Bluersquos fielding standards have dived The three catches going down inside the first five overs on Monday brought back not very pleasant memories from the late 90s and early 2000s From how it has panned out in the last decade or so chasing 255 against India is akin to chasing 220 against any other team as the side unfailingly concedes 3035 runs on the field on a typical dayBut the fielding woes are not entirely shocking As Indiarsquos desperate attempts to form a solid ODI lineup yielded little fruit there is a nagging problem growing at the top of the order There is seemingly no end to their prolonged struggle against leftarm pacers in limitedovers cricket More often than not wickets have been surrendered with little to no resistance notably during the powerplay stage Rohit Sharma and Co met with a similar fate on Saturday with Pakistan once again dominating the proceedings with some early wicketsAlso ReadRain wins the day at PallekeleThe many mercurial wizards of PakistanBabar Azamrsquos Green Army clearly displayed their stunning reserve of talent with ball and the willow Their showdown against archrivals India was impressive and the Nepal beatdown in the opener was brutal As spectacular as they have been on paper the fearsome trio of Shaheen Afridi Naseem Shah and Haris Rauf is on a whole different level Together they have scalped 49 wickets this year with Rauf leading the tally with 17 wickets from just ten appearancesBesides the stability that Babar Fakhar Zaman and ImamulHaq have brought to the fulcrum of the batting order cannot be emphasized enough Sure Pakistanrsquos middleorder conundrum across all formats have never faded away however their top three have time and again stabilized the core allowing the lower order to throw their bats around at the endMinnows against heavyweightsSo far the Asia Cup has been relatively low key with the big fish taking on the minnows with predictable results It is readily apparent that Asias cricket landscape currently consists of three really good teams ndash India Pakistan Sri Lanka and two teams that can oscillate between lsquogreatrsquo and lsquobelowparrsquo on any given day ndash Afghanistan and BangladeshThe opening group stages have clear three favourites to advance to the final from each pool ndash India and Pakistan from Group A and Sri Lanka from Group B That a threeway battle for the coveted title will be among the three is not so hard a prediction to come by but donrsquot let that lull you into thinking that Shakib Al Hasanrsquos Bangladesh could spring surprise over the lsquobig threersquo