 "Suryakumar Yadav demoted himself at No. 11 and even sent bowlers ahead of him in the final overs. Image: Reuters")
India managed to beat Oman by 21 runs in their final group game of the Asia Cup 2025, but cricket experts have slammed the team’s approach, saying the match should have been taken more seriously. Oman almost caused an upset as India looked scratchy across all departments.
Speaking to Cricbuzz, cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle said India got a “stern reminder” from Oman that if they just turn up for the game without any practice, then this is the kind of result they will get. India captain Suryakumar Yadav didn’t even bat as he sent others ahead of him to get some time in the middle.
“I think from time to time, life and the game reminds you that if you just turn up, if you take the opposition lightly, you get a reminder on your backside. I think this was a stern reminder to India. You could see that in the bowling. It was very disappointing the bowling. But they just turned up you could see that and it’s a reminder that if you do this, this is what will happen. Oman fell short by 21 runs in a relatively large chase is in the context of this tournament,” Bhogle said.
“So, sometimes it’s good to get that reminder again in life because if you just turn up then you must not win well, if you just turn up and you win it creates bad habits. So it’s good that India got a little bit of a scare. I hope they think it was a scare but if they look back at the bench strength, it didn’t look very good,” he added.
Gavaskar slams team’s approach
Former Indian cricketer Rohan Gavaskar echoed the criticism, particularly of the bench players, who were included in the playing XI ahead of the Oman game. Harshit Rana and Arshdeep Singh were included in the bowling lineup in place of Jasprit Bumrah and Varun Chakravarthy.
“When you’re a bench player not a certainty in 11 when you come up against a team like Oman you’ve got to be picking up wickets and be saying ’listen, you know what? I don’t care what the others are doing. I’m playing for more matches in not just in this tournament but in the future’ and if you look average against Oman or you don’t look threatening there are many a games where you’ll bowl really well and not pick up wickets, edges might go for four and the selectors will see and say ‘okay he bowled well, he’s been a little expensive but you know fine he has bowled well.’ But if you don’t look threatening, you don’t look wicket-taking then that’s a problem. You can play in second gear. We’ve played this game in second gear whether it’s the batting whether it’s the bowling you’ve seen like Tilak Varma bowled, Abhishek Sharma bowled,” Gavaskar told Cricbuzz.
Impact Shorts
More Shorts“So it clearly shows that they didn’t take the game seriously. Yeah, the batting order was such that Suryakumar Yadav didn’t bat. So they’ve not taken the game seriously. The bowling also hasn’t taken but the main bowlers not Abhishek Sharma and Tilak Varma, are the ones will be thinking you know what these Omani batters were 20 short of what would have been a historical victory for them,” he added.
India were restricted to 188/8 in 20 overs with Sanju Samson and Abhishek Sharma doing the bulk of the scoring. Oman bowlers did a good job as Shah Faisal, Jiten Ramanandi, and Aamir Kaleem took two wickets each. They then fought back in their chase with a strong performance from Kaleem, who scored 64 off 46 balls, and Hammad Mirza, who made 51 off 33 balls.
However, India’s bowlers held their nerve in the end. Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, and Hardik Pandya took crucial wickets to stop Oman from reaching the target. Oman finished at 167/4 in 20 overs, falling short by 21 runs. Arshdeep Singh also reached a personal milestone, becoming the first Indian male bowler to take 100 wickets in T20 Internationals.