Asia Cup 2025: India start title defence with swift demolition of UAE

Just a taste of India’s batting might

Instead, they had to be satisfied by a trailer of India’s batting might. A few snapshots they would archive in their mind. Like a flicked six of Gill. He sprung out to the left-arm seamer Muhammad Rohid Khan and lifted the ball over the mid-wicket with a whirr of the wrists. The entire stadium gasped, before exploding into a ground-shaking applause. In other formats, he would roll his wrists over similar balls and play it along the ground. But here, he snapped his wrists at the last moment to find the elevation and almost ferry the ball into the Beaudoin roof.

He had practised, and executed with similar effect, the stroke during the practice session on the eve of the game. Here, he found perfection. He would have wished the chase was steeper, for he could have unfurled the entire box of strokes. All he managed to face was nine balls, off which he blasted 20 with an uncharacteristic belligerence. But he furnished a brief glimpse that his return would not dilute the undiluted aggression the team had displayed in his long calendar-enforced break. He glided into the aggressor’s garb, hitting the second legal ball he faced for a four. Khan was again the bowler, he pulled his length back but Gill paused and cut him past point. Leaving the crease to seamers has been his pet-method since the mould-breaking IPL last season. Those are the little adjustments he makes to become a T20 force, where strike rates matter more than consistency.

But Gill and his old U-19 batting partner could form an indomitable as well as a fun firm. Abhishek with his devil-may-care attitude and Gill with virtuosic masterfulness. In time, they could blossom into the shortest format’s Sachin Tendulkar-Virender Sehwag incarnation. Abhishek has little inhibitions, even with or without scoreboard pressure. He sets off a chase of 58 with the same aggressive outlook as when he pursues a two hundred-plus total. The first ball he faced was swung into the night sky over long off. The second ball was creamed through extra cover for a four. The only surprise was that he got out, and when attempting one of his percentage strokes, the clump through leg-side.

The next move baffled. Entered Suryakumar Yadav. Not Tilak Varma, the man who walks in when Abhishek gets out, to keep the left-right pattern. It was perhaps inconsequential who walked in because the contest in the match was long over. He had just the time to showcase his patented supla shot. Or perhaps it doesn’t matter where these tremendously gifted sets of batsmen come to bat. Sanju Samson, the regular opener, could potentially come down the order. But it does not matter, he could be as useful as he had been batting up the order.

Bowling ammo

It could be said about the bowling too. Such is the malleable nature of the Indian bowling attack that Suryakumar Yadav could align their stars in a particular order and expect them to shine on any surface. Had they packed Arshdeep Singh instead of a spinner, they would have still breathed intimidation. Sometimes, it feels the captain merely turns up and picks the eleven on a whim. Over-deliberation would only confuse him. Whichever permutation he decides, his brigade has the ammo to detonate batsmen.

The first stroke of devilish genius came in the fourth ball of the third over. Alishan Sharfu was batting bravely, riding a bit of fortune and executing purposeful strokes. But he had no answer to a Jasprit Bumrah heat-seeker. Far decorated batsmen have seen their stumps tattered by a missile designed in a nuclear lab. Swerving in and hammering the base of the off-stump, beaten by both movement and speed. The batsmen did not even turn back. If he had, he would have stood there frozen. Bumrah, even a milder, relaxed, self-conserving avatar, was too inflammable for them to douse. Most often, the Emirati batsmen were a split second late into the stroke, and only when he allowed the width, did they think of scoring runs. Then Surykumar unleashed the spinners and the batsmen slumped into an inescapable hole of ignominy.

Sterner tests await Surya’s men, but given the wondrous dexterity of the team it would not probably matter which team he faces or which set of bowlers and batsmen he assembles.