Asia Cup 2016: India thrash UAE by 9 wickets to continue winning run

India eased to another win in the 2016 Asia Cup as they beat the United Arab Emirates by 9 wickets at the Shere Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur in Dhaka on Thursday. With this victory, MS Dhoni and co. will go into the final of the tournament with a perfect record of 4 wins from 4 matches

After winning the toss, UAE captain Amjad Javed elected to bat first but his team looked uncomfortable throughout their innings and finished with a total of 81/9 in their 20 overs. India had made three changes to their line-up with Bhuvneshwar Kuamr, Harbhajan Singh and debutant Pawan Negi replacing Ashish Nehra, R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.

Bhuvneshwar, in particular, was very impressive with the new ball – bowling two maidens and picking up a wicket at the start of the innings. He ended with figures of 2/8 in his 4 overs after dismissing Mohammad Naveed in the final over of the UAE innings.

On his return to the Indian team, Harbhajan bowled a very economical spell – conceding just 11 runs and picking up the wicket of Amjad Javed in his quota of 4 overs. Negi, playing in his first international match, ended with respectable figures of 1/16.

Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya and Yuvraj Singh also picked up a wicket a piece for the Indians. Only two batsmen reached double digits for UAE with Shaiman Anwar top scoring with 43.

The Indian batsmen didn’t have much trouble with the chase as the in-form Rohit Sharma took the attack from the word go against the UAE pacers. He was finally dismissed for 26-ball 39 – a knock that included 7 fours and 1 six.

Yuvraj was promoted to number three in the batting line-up and did not disappoint as he remained unbeaten on 25 with 4 fours and 1 six to his name. Shikhar Dhawan looked uncomfortable at the start of his innings, but didn't give away his wicket and remained until the end of the match.

With this win, India have now recorded 6 consecutive victories in the T20 format. They will face hosts Bangladesh in the Asia Cup final on Sunday.

Brief Scores

UAE 81/9 (20 overs) – Shaiman Anwar 43, Bhuvneshwar Kumar 2/8, Yuvraj Singh 1/10

lost to

India 82/1 (10.1 overs) – Rohit Sharma 39, Yuvraj Singh 25*, Qadeer Ahmed 1/23