Asia Cup 2025: Kuldeep Yadav leads India to record-breaking opening match victory over UAE
India romp to victory over host nation in title defence opener
The Indian national cricket team got their Asia Cup title defence off to a storming start by crushing the tournament’s hosts, the United Arab Emirates, by nine wickets in their first match of the competition on Wednesday afternoon.
The Men in Blue, who are already the favourites to win the 2025 Asia Cup according to the best betting sites in India, showed no mercy to their opponents from the off and bowled out the hosts in just 13.1 overs for a mere 57 runs.
Kuldeep Yadav produced a Player of the Match effort for the defending champions with the ball, notching up four wickets for just seven runs in 2.1 overs to mark his return to the national side in style after watching the majority of their tour to England from the sidelines.
Shivam Dube also posted impressive bowling figures of 3/4 in two overs, while the remainder of the wickets were shared among Jasprit Bumrah (1/19), Axar Patel (1/13) and Varun Chakaravarthy (1/4), while Hardik Pandya was the only Indian bowler to finish wicketless.
After knocking over the UAE in just 79 balls, Suryakumar Yadav’s side took just 27 deliveries to chase down the paltry target, with the skipper seeing them over the line alongside Test captain Shubman Gill after Abhishek Sharma was dismissed for 30 runs in the fourth over.
The UAE’s tally of 57 runs now stands as the lowest total any team has ever posted against the Blue Shirts in the shortest format of the game, while India’s successful chase in just 4.3 overs is the quickest in their T20I history.
India-Pakistan showdown promising fireworks
While India were firmly expected to overcome the UAE in their opening match of the 2025 Asia Cup, the manner in which they dispatched the host nation was incredibly impressive and comes at just the right time, ahead of their box-office matchup against Pakistan this weekend.
The Shaheens have been in good shape in recent weeks themselves, having won their one-off tri-nations series last week, when they smashed Afghanistan by 75 runs in the final at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium on Sunday.
Mohammad Nawaz was the chief contributor to the victory, picking up five wickets for just 19 runs in his four overs, helping his team to build up some much-needed momentum leading up to this tournament, and perhaps more importantly, their match against India this weekend.
The Green Shirts will get their Asia Cup campaign underway on Friday afternoon when they face Oman, and you can get all the key stats for that fixture via our cricket predictions.
