🏏T20 Asia Cup 2025- Ind vs UAE 2nd Match, Group A, Dubai 🏏

🏏India vs UAE, 2nd Match, Group A🏏

UAE look to script upset of the year against T20 world champions India. UAE coach Lalchand Rajput will be up against the team of his country of origin, whom he coached to the T20 World Cup truimph in 2007

It feels a touch ironic that India, the designated hosts of the Asia Cup 2025, should be "hosting" UAE in Dubai. But given the cloud of uncertainty that lingered over the tournament in the months leading up, the idea of having not one but two kinds of hosts - and of the event happening at all - already feels like a small victory.

This is only the second time India and UAE will meet in T20Is. The first was back in the 2016 Asia Cup, when the UAE crawled to 81/9, a total that India mopped up inside 10.1 overs. The contest was so lopsided that Rohit Sharma walked away with Player of the Match for a 28-ball 39.

Nine years on, the gap has narrowed but not nearly enough. UAE have moved forward, helped in no small measure by the ILT20 and the exposure it has offered their players, but India, in contrast, have surged. The batting has shed its inhibitions, freed first by Rohit Sharma's freedom template and then supercharged by the IPL's Impact Player rule. What was once a culture of caution is now anything but.

The results since the T20 World Cup win have underlined that shift, even with Rohit no longer being a part of the T20I setup. India have won 17 of their 20 T20Is in this fresh World Cup cycle, including all five bilateral series they have played, three of them away. And against UAE, they arrive looking every bit the favourites.

If there is any solace for the underdogs, it lies in the fact that India haven't played a T20I in over seven months, and that the venues in UAE have not always been kind to them. The memory of a 10-wicket hammering by Pakistan in 2021, India's only defeat to their neighbours in an ICC tournament, still lingers. A year later, defeats to Pakistan and Sri Lanka denied them a place in the Asia Cup final.

That is not to suggest this is an even contest on paper. India's resources, both human and financial, tower over anything UAE can marshal but for a side playing at home, at venues where their cricketers have rubbed shoulders with the world's best through the ILT20, there will be a quiet confidence of at least making India sweat. Stranger things have happened in cricket, no less in Dubai.

When: September 10 at 6:30 PM Local | 8 PM IST

Where: Dubai International Stadium, Dubai

What to expect: Some grass on the pitch. Unlike the Champions Trophy earlier this year, when India turned up with as many as four spinners on worn-out surfaces, this is the start of the cricket season in the country and the pacers can expect to have more of a say. The forecast, though, is far less kind, with "excessive heat" and a high of 42 degrees expected. The temperature at match time is still set to be around 36, which should test the players as well as the spectators.

Team watch

India: The team management still has a few calls to make, but the nets have offered clues. Shivam Dube appears the frontrunner for an allrounder's slot, the hint of grass on the pitch working in his favour. Behind the stumps, Jitesh Sharma seems set to take the gloves, which in turn squeezes Sanju Samson out, with Abhishek Sharma and the returning vice-captain Shubman Gill likely to open. Axar Patel should be the No.8, which means the final piece is the spin puzzle, a toss-up between Varun Chakaravarthy and Kuldeep Yadav.

Injuries/Unavailability: No news of any injuries in India's 15-man squad.

Tactics & Match-ups: Can Suryakumar Yadav rediscover his golden touch? While he was among the runs in IPL, his returns for India have been more modest since the start of 2024: 457 runs in 22 innings, an average of barely 22 and a SR nearly 20 points below his IPL numbers.

Probable XI: Shubman Gill (vc), Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav (C), Hardik Pandya, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy

UAE: Muhammad Waseem at the top and Asif Khan in the middle order are power houses with the bat and a lot will depend on them delivering the goods once again.

Injuries/Unavailability: Everyone is reported to be fit and available.

Tactics & Match-ups: Skipper Muhammad Wasim is UAE's leading run-getter in T20Is, recording three of the four hundreds for his country in the format. He was also Player of the Series in UAE's recent 2-1 win over Bangladesh, and will be a key wicket India would target.

Probable XI: Muhammad Waseem (C), Alishan Sharafu, Muhammad Zohaib, Rahul Chopra (wk), Asif Khan, Harshit Kaushik, Muhammad Farooq, Saghir Khan, Haider Ali, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Jawadullah

Did you know?

- India have won six of their 10 T20Is in UAE. Those wins have come against Pakistan, Afghanistan (2), Hong Kong, Namibia and Scotland.

- Waseem is currently only behind Rohit Sharma's tally in the most number of sixes hit in T20Is.

- Kuldeep Yadav has not featured in a T20I post the 2024 World Cup.

Big Picture: It's India against Lalchand Rajput's UAE

It's been a month and five days since the most lucrative banner in cricket took field. It is rare that India get such a long break from international cricket. They resume international cricket with a tournament that to the cynical mind exists so that other Asian boards can benefit from India's economic heft and in turn support the BCCI in the boardroom. However, one mustn't downplay the opportunity it gives to some of the smaller teams to play big-time opposition.

Like UAE, India's first opponents, who have played a full T20I tri- series since India last played international cricket. They came within a shot of upsetting Afghanistan even though they didn't win a single match in the tournament. This is just the kind of tough cricket they needed before facing the best team in the world in a year in which their momentum of a bilateral series win against Bangladesh was thwarted by two defeats in ten days to Uganda in the Pearl of Africa series.

Make no mistake, they are coming up against the reigning T20 world champions, who are not just the only team to have won every match in a T20 World Cup but one that has only got better since that campaign. India may have a small weakness in not having a specialist bowler who can hit sixes, but their specialist batting's firepower and their specialist bowling's uniqueness makes them strong contenders for being the best T20 empire ever created.

Who else to know the powerhouse India have become than the UAE coach, Lalchand Rajput, who took India to their first T20 World Cup campaign when the superstars of the game were not even serious about the format? If Rajput and captain Muhammad Waseem can plot a win against India, it will be the upset of the year.

In the spotlight: Shubman Gill and Simranjeet Singh

India's Test captain Shubman Gill is making a comeback into the T20I team. Not just any comeback but one as a vice-captain, which suggests he will take his opening position. There can be an argument made that he never lost the place, he was asked to vacate it as he prepared for what was perceived as more important cricket at that time. Now he comes back as India get a little more serious about their combination in the lead-up to their world title defence early next year. And he comes back with form: 650 runs in the IPL at a strike rate of 155.87 while batting within himself.

Fellow Punjabi, Ludhiana's Simranjeet Singh bowled to Gill in the nets when the India Test captain was about 12 years old. Always on the fringes of Punjab and Kings XI Punjab, left-arm spinner Simranjeet was stranded in Dubai during the Covid-19 lockdown. He ended up staying back, coaching young cricketers, and now, at 35, will come up against Gill, who has just turned 26.

Team News: Will Sanju Samson get a chance?

The big question for India is around Sanju Samson and the No. 8. If Gill takes the opening slot alongside Abhishek Sharma, does Samson bat at No. 3 or in the middle order or does he get to play at all? An ideal T20 combination won't ask him to bat out of position or disrupt their Nos. 3 and 4, which should open the door for Jitesh Sharma to come back into the XI. Stranger things have happened, though, and there is a lot of popular backing for Samson.

The other question for India is: do they play four specialist bowlers plus two allrounders and have no batting from No. 8 onwards or do they go three plus three? If they go four plus two, they could play both mystery spinners in Kuldeep Yadav Varun Chakravarthy, with Harshit Rana asked to do a batting job at No. 8. Three plus three will call for one of the spinners to be left out unless the pitch is a turner, which it doesn't seem to be.

Pitch and condition:

When India played in Dubai earlier in the year, in the ODI Champions Trophy, they unleashed four spinners on a used surface. The pitches are likely to be fresher and livelier for the Asia Cup, which might call for more balanced attacks and a second specialist fast bowler to partner Jasprit Bumrah. The oppressive heat at this time of the year will test the conditioning of both the sides.

Stats and Trivia:

• UAE have played India only once in T20Is, losing by nine wickets in the 2016 Asia Cup. They have also lost each of their three ODIs against India, the last of those in the 2015 World Cup.
• India hold a 24-3 win-loss record in T20Is since the start of the last T20 World Cup.