India are the favourites to win the Asia Cup T20 tournament beginning on Tuesday. While the action will begin with Afghanistan taking on Hong Kong in Abu Dhabi, a star-studded Indian team led by Suryakumar Yadav will be aiming to crush the United Arab Emirates in their opener on Wednesday.
In a tournament that has often served as a dress rehearsal for the T20 World Cup, the weight of expectations is on the Indian team. India, for all their internal debates and external expectations, look like the one side that has clarity of purpose. And clarity, in high-pressure tournaments, often counts for more than raw talent. If one takes into account leadership and sheer depth of talent, this seems to be India's tournament.
Such has been the confidence that chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar and head coach Gautam Gambhir did not for once consider picking a 17-member squad allowed by the Asian Cricket Council. Instead, they picked 15, like they do for ICC events even if it meant keeping out players like Shreyas Iyer and Yashasvi Jaiswal.
Winning the continental showpiece for the ninth time (seven in ODI format and one in T20 format in 2016) would not earn Suryakumar or head coach Gautam Gambhir any extra credit, but anything short of the title would invite a lot of criticism.
Getting the core combination right would be a major strategy for India, who are such a powerhouse that at this point, the BCCI can field three national T20 teams of equal strength. Suryakumar has been a phenomenal skipper so far with an astounding 80 per cent win record. With Shubman Gill as vice-captain, it will be interesting to watch how the T20 skipper and Test skipper align.
The manner in which Indian batters reinvented the grammar of T20 batting, largely due to IPL exposure, has been difficult to match for teams like Pakistan and Sri Lanka, who were on even keel till 15 years ago.
The broader storyline of the Asia Cup is therefore less about who can win it and more about who can stop India. Their depth dwarfs Pakistan's transitional experiment and Sri Lanka's rebuilt side. Salman Ali Agha's Pakistan team bears a young and fresh look.
The dropping of Babar Azam and Muhammad Rizwan is the Pakistan Cricket Board’s clearest admission yet that reputations cannot hold a team hostage. But their success will largely depend on how Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf and Hasan Ali bowl against the Indian batting line-up.
Pakistan would feel confident that they hammered Afghanistan by 75 runs in a low-scoring final of a tri-series where their spinners dominated on a slow Sharjah track. Sri Lanka, under Charith Asalanka, aren't bad either, but whether they have the consistency to win six to seven games in a tournament remains to be seen. Bangladesh, who remain mercurial in the shortest format, lack the firepower to sustain a challenge across the full length of the tournament.
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