Virat Kohli Gobsmacked As Shaheen Owns Rohit Sharma, Almost Foresees India Captain’s Fate During IND Vs PAK Clash

Rain intervals have often changed the course of a match and Saturday’s Asia Cup 2023 clash between India and Pakistan saw something similar transpire.

After winning the toss and opting to bat, captain Rohit Sharma had taken the score to 15/0 with a couple of scrumptious boundaries before rain halted proceedings at Kandy’s Pallekele Stadium. After a 30-minute delay, once play resumed, things changed at the drop of a dime with Shaheen Afridi rocking India two balls after the break.

From the moment Shaheen ran in to bowl the fourth ball of the fifth over to Rohit, he had a different spring in his steps. And the next three balls proved exactly that. The first ball squared up Rohit, the second beat him out side off and the third castled the India captain’s off-stump. After setting him up with an outswinger and one that skid through, Afridi got the third ball to nip back, swing through the gate between bat and pad and crash onto the stumps.

However, in a blink-and-a-miss moment, a particular reaction from Virat Kohli in the change room indicated sign of things to come. After the second ball left Rohit’s defence, Kohli’s eyes widened, as if he was taken aback by the movement. Surprisingly, off the very next ball, Shaheen dismissed Rohit with an unplayable ripper. During the rain interruption, Pakistan fast bowling legend Waqar Younis urged Shaheen to not ‘try too hard’ or ‘be anxious’. Clearly, someone passed that message on to Shaheen, who looked a different bowler.

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It’s not as if Shaheen was all over the place pre-break. He was on the mark from the first ball itself, finding the yorker length. The memories of the World T20 match in Dubai fresh in his mind, Shaheen’s first ball was a fiery full-length delivery to Rohit, which the India captain negotiated, and even managed a couple of boundaries – a flick off his hips and a clip off his pads – but he never looked entirely at ease against the left-arm quick. Rohit and India’s woes against quality left-arm pace has been well-documented and today was just another chapter of the same nightmare coming back to haunt India as Shaheen removed Kohli in his next over.

Shreyas Iyer began his India comeback on a bright note, creaming a couple of boundaries off three balls before he found a well-connected pull shot off Haris Rauf to Fakhar Zaman at mid-wicket for India’s third wicket.