India vice-captain Shubman Gill lavished praise on Sanju Samson, Tilak Varma and Shivam Dube after the team's thrilling win against Pakistan in the Asia Cup 2025 final at Dubai International Stadium in Dubai. While chasing 147 runs, defending champions India lost three wickets in the power play, scoring just 20 runs.
After the early collapse, Tilak (69 not out off 53 balls) was composed and audacious in equal measure, with Sanju Samson (24) and Shivam Dube (33 off 21 balls ) helping India to chase down the total in 19.4 overs. After India's ninth Asia Cup title win, Gill admitted that the target was easy, but things were not easy since the side was three wickets down.
"The conversation was to take it as deep as possible. The target was not much and losing three early wickets never easy but the way Sanju and Tilak batted and the way Dube hit those sixes was amazing. There wasn't much panic with 30 off 3 overs, but it was a slow wicket and the boundaries are bigger, the way both the batters batted, first soaking in the pressure and then hit it out of the park" said Shubman Gill in post match presentation.
Gill, who featured as an opener alongside his former Punjab teammate Abhishek Sharma in the mega event, revealed that both of them know each other inside out, lauding the southpaw for taking the pressure off from the non-striker.
"Pretty amazing. Whole tournament unbeaten and feels amazing. (on batting with Abhishek) We have played almost all of our cricket with each other. We know each other inside out and it's amazing to bat with him, he has been phenomenal this tournament. Takes the pressure off the non-striker," Gill also said
Abhishek ended his first multinational tournament as the highest run-getter, scoring 314 runs in seven matches at an average of 44-85. Notably, India and Pakistan faced each other thrice in the mega event and the Men in Blue won all clashes by seven, six and five wickets respectively.