IND vs UAE, Asia Cup 2025 2nd T20 Match Highlights: IND thrash UAE by 9 wickets, chase 58-run target down in just 4.3 overs

Suryakumar Yadav gets off the mark with a first-ball six. Last ball of Siddique's over was short and sliding down leg, SKY pulls it way over fine leg for six.

India now need 20 runs to win and we are only halfway through the powerplay! Dhruv Parashar had bowled the second ball of the third over wide down the leg side and then Abhishek ran two next ball. The fifth ball is blasted over mid off for six. Then the last is hoisted over extra cover. One bounce four.

Abhishek has scored 23 in 13 balls, Gill on 13 off five.

India 38/0 in 3 overs

First ball is floated full outside off and Abhishek wallops it over mid off for a six. Then he sends the second ball over cover for a four. No more runs in that over but well, India now need just 48 to win off 114.

Kuldeep is on a hat-trick but he will have to go for it in India's next match. This is the lowest ever score that any team has been all out for against India in a T20I lower than the previous record of 66 by New Zealand in Ahmedabad in 2023. Kuldeep is on a hat-trick but he will have to go for it in India's next match. This is the lowest ever score that any team has been all out for against India in a T20I lower than the previous record of 66 by New Zealand in Ahmedabad in 2023. What turned out to be the last ball of the innings was a googly on length outside off. It rips back into the batter and hits him on the front pad. Umpire gives it out but Haider looked like he wanted to review that. UAE had none left though.

All right a lot to unpack here. Third ball of that 13th over by Dube and his towel seems to fall while he was in his run up. Siddique goes for an almighty swing and misses. He then seems to ask the umpire why dead ball was not called when the towel fell, in which time Samson throws the ball at the stumps at the striker's end. He was standing a centimetre outside the stumps when talking to the umpire and so he is run out. Properly farcical scenes but then guess what, Suryakumar goes and withdraws that appeal.

The wide gaping gulf between the two teams summed in that sequence of events.

Axar strikes, umpire raises the finger, Simranjeet Singh goes for a review that takes an age to conclude. Once it does, the umpire's call is upheld. So UAE retain a review. Small wins.

Simranjeet Singh lbw b Patel 1 (5)

UAE 52/7 in 11.2 overs

Huge LBW shout against Asif Khan off the second ball of the 10th over that the umpire turns down. SKY reviews it, though it seems to be more to pacify Chakravarthy than anything else. Ball tracking shows the ball nowhere close to leg stump. Asif gets off strrike and then a huge LBW shout against Dhruv Parashar. This time the umpire raises his finger and the batter reviews. This time there was a big inside edge!

UAE 51/5 in 10 overs

Big shout for LBW and given! Waseem takes a review though. Fourth ball of the ninth over is fired in flat on a length at leg stump. Waseem moves across and tries to sweep. No bat on it and three reds on ball-tracking. Well UAE are unravelling here.

Muhammad Waseem lbw b Kuldeep Yadav 19 (22)

UAE 48/4 in 8.4 overs

Waseem ends the powerplay well for his team. Bumrah bowled the sixth over, his third on the trot, and was welcomed back with a truly majestic drive from Waseem past mid off for four. Bumrah bangs it in the next three balls, Waseem unable to get any useful connection despite swinging for all. The fifth ball is another bounder outside off but this doesn't have enough pace and Waseem pounces. Sent over backward point for four. Bumrah then misses a leg stump yorker, full on the pads and Waseem just clips it leg side for another four.

India can't let the UAE captain stay for too long here. He is on 16 off 12, he has Rahul Chopra at the other end.

UAE 41/2 at the end of powerplay

It was coming. The off stump is lying flat on the ground. He had bowled the first ball back of a length to Waseem, an off cutter and then another short of a length ball that the UAE captain managed to take a single off. And then comes the yorker from hell and Sharafu simply couldn't get his bat down in time.

Sharafu b Bumrah 22 (17)

UAE 26/1 in 3.4 overs

Waseem takes a single off the first ball and then Sharafu pinned to the crease for the rest of the over. Bumrah bowls the fourth ball short and tries to bowl the fifth one short as well but the latter goes wide down leg side. Then comes a full toss on off that Sharafu couldn't get away. The last ball is short on the hips of the batter, Sharafu sends it behind square for four.

Now Axar Patel to bowl the third.

UAE 16/0 in 2 overs

Hardik Pandya, his hair bleached blond and shiny, has taken the new ball (not Jasprit Bumrah). Alishan Sharafu is on strike for UAE, captain and talisman Muhammad Waseem at the other end. Here we go!

Russell Arnold was right there to do the pitch report as soon as the toss ended, Manjrekar joined him and casually called both the former Sri Lanka captain and the pitch "two-faced".

A much calmer day in terms of the heat. There's a shorter boundary the players can target. 62 meters on one side, 75 meters on the other. Newly laid pitch with some cracks. 4mm grass I'm told. There are some bare patches too, so it could be unpredictable. One side is bare and the other end has grass.

Before flicking the coin up, he told Waseem: "Don't look". Then match referee Andy Pycroft had to interrupt his interview with Sanjay Manjrekar to confirm what he had said India are doing. Once he was done, he asked Waseem if he could hear him or not. He had a smile plastered on his face the whole.

The Indian team, meanwhile, have gone with some very interesting selection calls, which we will get to in a bit...

There you go, Sanju Samson is in the eleven but he is going to be in the middle order.

India XI: Abhishek Sharma, Shubman Gill, Suryakumar Yadav(c), Tilak Varma, Sanju Samson(w), Shivam Dube, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakaravarthy

Was also when they won the T20 World Cup itself. Needless to say, this is a very different Indian team to the last one that took the field for a big tournament. Back then, India were led by Rohit Sharma and the player of the match in the final was Virat Kohli. Both players retired from the format after that game, as did Ravindra Jadeja who played a pivotal role in the tournament. This well and truly is the start of a new era for the Indian T20I side.

Sandip G: A familiar face greeted Gautam Gambhir, UAE coach Lalchand Rajput. The pair hugged and chatted for a while. Soon Suryakumar Yadav too joined them, exchanging pleasantries. Just beside them, Arshdeep Singh marked his run-up, shortly followed by Varun Chakaravarthy. Surya proceeded for a few throwdowns, getting his eyes used to the light. Shubman Gill, meanwhile, stretched his sinews before the game. Shivam Dube too measured his run-up, suggesting that he could play this game.

Jasprit Bumrah has had a break of well over a month but then India's policy with him seems to be to keep him snug inside a bubble wrap, with good reason. Hence, it might not be too much of a surprise if Bumrah is not in the squad to face the UAE today.

Few would even dare to dream the kind of start to Test captaincy that Shubman Gill got earlier this year. Not only did he break and equal all kinds of runscoring records, he also managed to get his side to draw a five-Test series in England in his very first assignment as skipper of a team. Most of the Indian greats who have led the team before him have only been able to return with often humiliating defeats behind them, despite those series coming well into their captaincies. It is quite obvious that Gill is seen as the future leader of the Indian team in all formats and as the current vice-captain, he will surely be part of the eleven in this tournament. Gill is among the top batters in the IPL, it remains to be seen if he can find that kind of consistency in T20Is as well, something he hasn't really been able to do thus far in his career.

Muhammad Waseem(c), Alishan Sharafu, Rahul Chopra(w), Asif Khan, Muhammad Zohaib, Harshit Kaushik, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Saghir Khan, Haider Ali, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Rohid Khan, Aryansh Sharma, Dhruv Parashar, Matiullah Khan, Ethan DSouza, Simranjeet Singh

Not often do Indian cricketers get a rest of more than a month - either there is some iteration of the Indian team playing somewhere or it is the IPL, and so it does feel like its been ages since we saw them in action. But here they are, getting ready to face the UAE to open their title defence in the 2025 Asia Cup. There are thousands of questions swirling around the Indian combination, no surprises there, and a lot of it will be answered today. Stay tuned for more updates!