Pakistan cricket team is off to a great start with speedster Shaheen Afridi dismissing Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma with sensational deliveries in the Asia Cup 2023 match at Pallekele International Cricket Stadium on Saturday, September 2.
Shaheen first bowled out Rohit with an excellent inswing delivery in the fifth over and then silenced the crowd at Pallekele with Virat Kohli's wickets, the biggest pick of the match. India are down to 30 runs after seven wickets with Pakistani bowlers running the show.
Watch Rohit Sharma's dismissal:
Watch Virat Kohli's dismissal:
Meanwhile, Rohit won the toss for India and surprisingly elected to bat first despite the threat of rain looming over the game. There were no surprises in India's playing squad as Rohit and Shubman Gill walked in to open an innings with the latter making his debut in the Asia Cup.
Shaheen started with a new ball and quickly displayed his ability to swing the ball both ways. Rohit pulled off a boundary off the innings' second ball but it came off Fakhar Zaman's dropped attempt at square leg. Both Rohit and Gill struggled to adapt to the conditions with Pakistani pacers threatening with impressive deliveries.
Shaheen trapped Rohit with some smart bowling in the fifth over. He produced two outswing deliveries on the inning's first two balls and then shocked the Indian opener by getting his last delivery with a wonderful in-swing to pick the off stump. Sheen produced a similar delivery to dismiss Virat in the seventh over to further shock Indian fans with Kohli's wicket. The delivery took a thick inside edge and found the leg stump leaving Indian star in surprise.
India Playing XI: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Ishan Kishan(wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj
Pakistan Playing XI: Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Babar Azam (c), Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Agha Salman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf
