India vs Bangladesh, Super Four, Asia Cup 2025: Eyes On Abhishek, Mustafizur Duel
With a finals berth on the line and reputations at stake, Wednesday's Super 4 clash against India could be Bangladesh’s biggest chance yet, writes Karan Pradhan.
Last Updated: 01.41 PM, Sep 24, 2025
KAMINDU MENDIS APART, Sri Lanka’s meek surrender to Pakistan in Tuesday night’s Super 4 fixture has very nearly eliminated the Islanders from the T20 Asia Cup. We’ll go into the permutations of results required for their survival later on in the piece, but for now there seem to be only three contenders for the two spots as finalists: The aforementioned Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. And it’s the latter two who will face off in Wednesday’s Super 4 fixture.
HEAD TO HEAD The two neighbours have played each other a total of 17 times in T20 Internationals, with India grabbing the W on 16 occasions. The one blot in their copybook was back in November 2019 at Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Cricket Stadium when a Mushfiqur Rahim special handed India a thumping seven-wicket defeat. The closest the Tigers have come to overhauling the Men in Blue apart from that match was in the 2016 World T20, when the Mashrafe Mortaza-led side fell a solitary run short of their target. Their past five meetings, however, have been extremely one-sided with India coming out on top at a canter.
With 477 runs, Rohit Sharma is the highest run-scorer in this fixture, with Litton Das (230) the top-scorer among current players. On the bowling side of things, Washington Sundar has the most wickets at 10, with Arshdeep Singh (nine) leading the pack among players involved in the current scheme of things.
THE BIG STORY AND SOME SUBPLOTS Will Bangladesh suffer the same steamrolling as other sides (barring Oman) have in this tournament? That’s the big question that will, one way or another, be answered this evening. While India was certainly going through the motions in ‘exhibition mode’, Jatinder Singh’s side’s batting display demonstrated more fight than Suryakumar Yadav has seen from an opposition side all tournament long.
Boasting a strike rate of 208.43 and a total aggregate of 173 runs, Abhishek Sharma has been the most effective and destructive batter in the series so far. Any notions of him taking his foot off the gas in this match would be far too wishful. On the other side of the pitch, Kuldeep Yadav leads the wickets tally at nine, with India’s familiar foe Mustafizur Rahman not too far behind on seven.
On this Dubai pitch, India have yet to play such bowlers as Mustafizur and his teammate Taskin Ahmed who are able to vary their pace while exploiting the manner in which the ball grips the surface. Sure, Suryakumar and Co have faced other proponents of quick bowling, but nothing of this sort so far. Meanwhile, the Bangladeshi bowling battalion has also not faced an explosive top order like that of India’s thus far.
Should the Indian batters manage to negotiate Taskin and Mustafizur (and leggie Rishad Hossain, to an extent), it should be smooth sailing with the rest of the bowlers. However, should there be early breakthroughs, India’s as-yet-untested middle order will face a rather stiff challenge.
And then there’s the issue of motivation. It’s all come rather easy for India in this edition of the Asia Cup, including two facile wins over rivals (or not, depending on whom you ask) Pakistan. In this backdrop, one could even postulate that the first sign of a real challenge or struggle might send the Indian team to panic stations. As for Bangladesh, they will be only too aware that they are the only team among the Super 4 to have never laid hands on an Asia Cup no matter the format. The three-time runners-up also find themselves in a situation where they still hold their destiny in their own hands. A Bangladeshi win, no matter how unlikely, would leave the Super 4 stage wide open, and put them in a comfortable space to qualify for the finals. However, an Indian victory would mean that Bangladesh’s meeting with Pakistan (strangely occurring a mere 24 hours later) becomes a must-win.
Elsewhere on the table, Sri Lanka will need Bangladesh to defeat India and Pakistan — by reasonable large margins — to keep their own hopes of making the final alive. And in order to finalise their spot, they’ll have to cap the Super 4 stage with a win over India, once again by a large margin. For Pakistan, it’s a simple case of defeating Bangladesh, which would invalidate all other eventualities and secure a spot in the finals. After a fortnight of near-drudgery, we’re finally getting to the good stuff, and a cracking India-Bangladesh match will be a perfect start.
Karan Pradhan is editor-in-chief of Story Mode, a gaming and gaming-adjacent magazine. Follow him on X/Twitter @karanpradhan_