Minnows Hong Kong put up a spirited fight before going down by 26 runs to a rather dull Indian team in their Group A opening match of the Asia Cup in Dubai on Tuesday.
Chasing a challenging target of 286 runs, Hong Kong rode on half-centuries by opener Nizakat Khan and Anshuman Rath before batting out their full quota of 50 overs for a score of 259/8.
Khan was the highest scorer for Hong Kong with 92 runs off 115 balls while Rath scored 73 off 97. The duo frustrated the Indian bowlers for a rather lenghty period on their way to an opening partnership of 174 runs in 34.1 overs, the highest by any associate nation.
The departure of the two openers saw the required run rate climb steadily. The rest of the Hong Kong batsmen did well to bat out the remaining overs, but did not have the ability nor perhaps the experience to go for the win.
Here is how Twitter reacted to Hong Kong’s inspiring run-chase:
One of the few positives for India from this match was the discovery of yet another promising pacer in Ahmed who did well to return excellent figures of 3/48 on his international debut.
Earlier, opener Shikhar Dhawan (127) smashed a century to set perfect platform but some poor batting from the middle-order saw India post 285/7.
(With inputs from IANS)
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