 "India captain Suryakumar Yadav and his UAE counterpart Muhammad Waseem during toss in Match 2 of the 2025 Asia Cup in Dubai. Image credit: BCCI")
Suryakumar Yadav broke India’s curse when it came to tosses on Wednesday, with fortune smiling on him during the opening game of the 2025 Asia Cup against hosts UAE in Dubai. Surya flipped the coin at the start of the second match of the tournament while UAE captain Muhammad Waseem called “heads”, and for the first time since January, an Indian captain got to decide the course that the match would be taking.
LIVE | India vs UAE, Asia Cup 2025, Match 2 in Dubai
What stood out during the toss, however, was Surya’s hilarious “don’t look” quip directed to Waseem during toss, hoping the UAE captain looking away from him would change India’s luck. And what made the comment even funner was the fact that it the Men in Blue ended up winning the toss for the first time since the T20I series against England earlier this year, which incidentally also featured SKY as the leader.
Surya mentions dew while opting to bowl against UAE
As for his decision to bowl, Surya stated that while the team is flexible in terms of their preferences, they opted to bowl anticipating the possibility of dew later in the game.
“We’ll bowl first. Looks a nice fresh wicket. Humid also today, might be dew later. If we get an opportunity, we’re flexible to do anything but today we want to bowl. We came here early, had 3-4 good practice sessions and also a day off,” Surya said during toss.
India also included Sanju Samson in the Playing XI, with Test captain Shubman Gill slotting right in as Abhishek Sharma’s opening partner. Additionally, Jasprit Bumrah was included as the lone genuine pacer, with the Men in Blue opting for a three-pronged spin attack in Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy and Axar Patel.