India’s skill level high, Pakistan’s not quite: Sarfraz Ahmed

NEW DELHI: In two matches against Pakistan at the ongoing Asia Cup, India have lost just three wickets while limiting the arch-rivals to 162 all out in the group stage and 237/7 in their ‘Super Four’ match on Sunday in Dubai. Such dominance forced Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed to admit that his team doesn’t match up to the skill level India bring to the table.

Rohit Sharma (111*) and Shikhar Dhawan (114) hit centuries in India’s nine-wicket win on Sunday to virtually book a place in the title clash.
Ahmed, who scored a fighting 44 in partnership with top-scorer Shoaib Malik (78), revived Pakistan from a shaky 58/3 after they chose to bat, but Indian bowlers stuck to their task once again and restricted the opposition to under 250.
“Their skill-level is high, ours is not quite there, but by the final, we’ll get better. It’s a do-or-die match for us in the next game, we’ll do our best,” said Ahmed at the post-match presentation ceremony.
Pakistan play Bangladesh in their last ‘Super Four’ match, which will be a shootout for a place in the final.
While Ahmed thought Pakistan were “20-30 runs short”, India winning by nine wickets and reaching the target of 238 with 10.3 overs to spare told another story.

“Tough game, we did well with the bat but (were) 20-30 runs short,” he said.
Sharma was dropped twice on 14 and 81 by Imam-ul-Haq and Fakhar Zaman, respectively; and Ahmed rued those missed chances.

“If we keep dropping catches, we won’t win games. We’ve done hard work at fielding. So I’m not sure what’s going wrong. I thought the pitch was difficult to bat on (and) that it would be hard for a new batsman to start here. For that reason, we should have held on to our catches,” the captain added.
“They had set batsman to do the job. We were trying to get early wickets… and when we don’t get them, with batsmen like Rohit and Dhawan, it’s hard to come back.”