Dubai, Sept 20: Skipper Suryakumar Yadav made optimal use of available resources in both departments as India did enough to beat a spirited Oman by 21 runs to end their league stage commitments in Asia Cup with a hat-trick of victories.In less than 48 hours, India will once again lock horns with Pakistan in the Super 4s in Dubai and before that Indian skipper rightly decided to give his other 10 colleagues a hit in the middle while pushing himself down to number 11.
India set a stiff target of 189 for Oman, who were playing T20 World Champions for the first time.
The Indian bowling attack without Jasprit Bumrah and Varun Chakravarthy didn’t look exceptional but just about kept Oman at bay during the final overs, restricting them to 167 for 4 in 20 overs.
In the batting department, Sanju Samson (56) helped himself to a half-century while Axar Patel (26 off 13 balls) and opener Abhishek Sharma (38 off 15 balls) followed the team template to the ‘T’ by scoring at a 200 plus strike-rate. Tilak Varma (29 off 18 balls) also did his cause no harm batting at an unfamiliar No.7 position.
However, Hardik Pandya (1), who needed some batting time, was unfortunately run-out by his one-time Baroda club-cricket colleague Jiten Ramanandi and vice-captain Shubman Gill (5 off 8 balls) was slightly scratchy in his brief stay.
In bowling too, Surya had the luxury of using as many as eight bowling options to keep everyone match-ready knowing that 189 would always be tall-order for Oman.
The two replacements in the playing eleven — Harshit Rana (1/25 in 3 overs) and Arshdeep Singh (1/37) — looked woefully short of game time even though both had played North Zone’s only Duleep Trophy game this season.
Kuldeep Yadav (1/23 in 3 overs) as usual was cut above the rest. Arshdeep, who is unlikely to play against Pakistan, got a chance to complete 100 wickets, making him the first Indian to reach that milestone.
For Oman, skipper Jatinder Singh (32 of 33 balls), fellow opener Aamir Kaleem (64 off 46 balls) and Hammad Mirza (51 off 34 balls) did put up a gutsy fight but it was not enough to script a famous win.
But looking at the bigger picture, it gave Surya an idea of what to expect from his resources come business end of the tournament.
The biggest gainer was Samson, who helped himself to some runs although there is no guarantee that he would bat No.3 when Pakistan comes calling.
Scratchy batting effort
With vice-captain Gill getting out cheaply, the one drop slot warranted a right hander and accordingly Samson got a chance to bat in the top 3.
It wasn’t the smoothest of his innings on a slightly slowish track but three fours and three sixes off 45 balls would certainly give him confidence ahead of the business week.
Of all his big hits, the first maximum off left-arm seamer Shah Faisal, a pick-up shot over widish long-on stood out but lack of match time showed as he did struggle to get going.
It was pretty obvious that India would like to bat first and make full use of the 20 overs before the start of the Super 4s giving sufficient time to their under-utilized middle-order ahead of Pakistan game on Sunday.
The batting order was rightly shuffled giving Samson his favourite slot, promoting all-rounders Axar and Pandya ahead of specialist left-hander Tilak or batting all-rounder Shivam Dube (5).