Salman Agha is in no mood to muzzle his quicks. Twenty-four hours before Pakistan meet India for the Asia Cup trophy, the captain made it plain the fast bowlers will be allowed to snarl, glare and celebrate – within reason – just as they did in last week’s fractious group game.
“If someone wants to be aggressive on the ground, then why not,” Agha told reporters in Colombo. “If you deprive a fast bowler of their aggression, then what’s left? Every player knows how to deal with their emotions. I give players license to react the way they want at the ground. As long as they’re not disrespecting anyone and stay within the line, I have no issues with that.”
That earlier meeting produced Code-of-Conduct penalties for Haris Rauf and Sahibzada Farhan, plus a rap for India’s captain Suryakumar Yadav. The temperature will not fall for the final, yet Agha insists the hostility should stop short of basic courtesy. India declined handshakes before and after the last match, something the 32-year-old still finds hard to digest.
“I’ve been playing cricket since 2007 professionally. I’ve never seen no handshakes between two teams. My dad is a huge fan of cricket and used to tell me about its history. He never told me about any game where there’s not been a handshake. I’ve heard it’s never happened before.
“When India-Pakistan games took place in even more tense situations, handshakes always happened. Not to have handshakes is not good for cricket. If someone wants to be aggressive, whether they’re from my team or their team, I have no issues with that, but you should shake hands at the end of it.”
Indian officials have offered no hint of reversing their stance, so the customary pre-match greeting looks unlikely again. The broader narrative from the Indian camp is that this is “just another game”. Agha sees it differently.
“It would be wrong to say a Pakistan-India match doesn’t carry more pressure. It’s the final. There’ll be a similar amount of pressure on both sides. The pressure of a final is different, of course.”
Despite the noise, he tried to bring the focus back to bat and ball. “We can’t control what’s happened out of the ground. One of our philosophies is to not worry about what we can’t control. We are not focused on what people on the outside are saying. We’re here to win the Asia Cup and that’s our only focus.”
On personal form, the skipper was brutally honest. His 78.04 strike-rate is the lowest of any top-order batter still standing in the tournament and 31 players have out-scored him. “It’s been tough,” he admitted privately to a team-mate during training, though not in the press conference. Whether he shuffles himself down the order or trusts his method remains a small subplot for Sunday.
Key match-ups have been chewed over by every TV panel. Former Pakistan all-rounder Urooj Mumtaz believes the combination of Fakhar Zaman’s powerplay hitting, Shaheen Afridi’s new-ball swing and Abrar Ahmed’s wrist-spin offer Pakistan “a genuine ticket to upset India’s rhythm”. She reckons Shaheen, in particular, should take a cue from Sri Lanka’s left-armers who cramped India’s right-handers earlier in the competition.
From the other side of the fence, Aakash Chopra picked a different battle within the battle: “Abhishek vs Shaheen could decide the game”. The explosive Indian opener has hammered 179 runs at 11.9 an over so far, but his technique against express left-arm swing is still under the microscope. A first-over wicket there, Chopra feels, could tilt everything.
Tactically, Pakistan are likely to stick with five bowlers plus Iftikhar Ahmed’s off-spin as sixth option. That leaves the batting unit slightly long-tailed, yet Agha is reluctant to dilute the pace battery by adding an extra all-rounder. With rain lurking, the side management also spoke of rehearsing a reduced-overs scenario where every ball counts and aggression, paradoxically, may need to be tempered by discipline.
Tournament organisers confirmed the reserve day policy remains unchanged: a washout on Sunday will push the finale into Monday. The pitch, used only once before, offered modest pace and a bit of turn in the Sri Lanka-Bangladesh fixture. Curator Gamini Silva suggested something similar: “It should help the spinners late evening, but there’s enough grass for the quicks early on,” he said.
Back in the Pakistan camp, net sessions were loud. Haris Rauf sprinted in, hair flopping, letting out the occasional yelp after beating the bat. Shaheen Afridi – knee looking freer every game – again practised the yorker first, bouncer second, almost a public rebuttal to critics who say he has lost a yard. Both men are itching to replicate that intensity when it matters.
Agha’s final sound-bite, half-smile in place, summed up the balancing act: “Aggression yes, disrespect no. Simple.”
Come Sunday, simple turns complex. One more India-Pakistan showdown, one more trophy on the line, and perhaps, if sense prevails, a handshake at the end of it all.
