Pakistan batter Sahibzada Farhan played a key role in his side posting a respectable total of 171/5 after 20 overs against India in Asia Cup. The 29-year-old was the top performer for Pakistan with the bat and played a valiant knock of 58 runs, including five boundaries and three maximums. He was eventually sent back to the pavilion in the 15th over by Shivam Dube.
However, rather than making headlines for his batting, Farhan instead got a lot of attention for his 'gun' celebration that he unleashed after reaching the 50-run mark against India. The celebration also landed the batter in hot water with many fans criticising him for it. Farhan has now broken his silence on the matter and has stated that he doesn't care about how fans think about his celebration as it is something that he just wanted to do.
"I think, if you talk about the sixes, you will see that (a lot) in the future. And that (celebration) was just a moment at that time. I do not do a lot of celebrations after scoring 50. But, it suddenly came to my mind that let's do a celebration today. I did that. I don't know how people will take it. I don't care about that. And the rest, you know, you should play aggressive cricket wherever you play. It is not necessary that it is India. You should play aggressive cricket against every team, like we played today," Farhan said during the pre-match press-conference.
Despite Farhan's half-century, Pakistan failed to touch the 200-run mark and were restricted to 171/5 after the Indian bowlers put the brakes during the second-half of the innings. This total wouldn't prove to be enough at the end of the day as the Men in Blue would go on to chase down the 172-run target with seven deliveries left to spare.
India's fabulous batting performance
It was a dominant batting display from Suryakumar Yadav & Co. as they only lost four wickets and chased down the target rather comfortably. Abhishek Sharma was the star of the show with his knock of 74 while Shubman Gill and Tilak Varma also contributed well with their knocks of 47 and 30 respectively.
Pakistan's next opponent to be Sri Lanka
Meanwhile, Pakistan will now be looking to bounce back from the defeat in their next match of the tournament which will be against Sri Lanka and will be ehld on September 23. On the other hand, India will be looking to continue their winning run when they take on Bangladesh on September 24.