Asia Cup | We were not prepared for Kedar Jadhav, admits Sarfraz Ahmed

India made their way to a convincing eight-wicket victory against Pakistan last night to top their group after back-to-back victories. Pakistan have been tipped to be the favorites to lift the trophy in the ongoing Asia Cup but put in a below-par performance against archrivals which turned out to be a one-sided affair.

Pakistan captain, Sarfraz Ahmed has claimed it was part-time off-spinner - Kedar Jadhav, who caused his side all kinds of problems in the middle overs. Jadhav picked up 3/23 in his nine-over spell, which included the wicket of Ahmed as well. 

"We had prepared for the two spinners but the third one chipped in with wickets," Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed said at the post-match presentation.

Jadhav produced an impressive performance as he stepped in the shoes of Hardik Pandya (0/24 in 4.5 overs) who was stretchered off the field due to an acute lower back injury. However, Pakistan looked to be cruising after young Babar Azam (47) and veteran batsman Shoaib Malik (43) added 82 runs for the third wicket showin no signs of slowing down in the middle-overs.

However, Ahmed’s side suffered a batting collapse and they lost five wickets for 36 runs before Faheem Ashraf (21) and Mohammed Amir (16) added an invaluable 37 runs for the eighth wicket which took the total past 150-run mark.

"The start was not at all good. We lost two wickets in the first five overs. We got some momentum in the middle but again lost wickets and could not recover.We batted poorly and all of us played poor shots to get out.

"It is nice to get a wake up call early on in the tournament and we would not want to commit the same mistakes. We will come back better prepared next time," Sarfraz admitted.