11 similarities between IND-PAK Austral Asia Cup Final 1986 and Asia Cup 2014: The final of the Austral Asia Cup 1986 was played between India and Pakistan on 18th April, 1986. After a hard fought battle, Pakistan won the match and the title.
The 6th game in the Asia Cup 2014, was also played between arch-rivals, India and Pakistan on 2nd March, 2014. This match also saw a ‘nail-biting’ finish with Pakistan having the ‘last laugh’.
However, there have been quite a few similarities between these two games. They are:
- Both the matches were played on neutral venue. While the 1986 encounter took place at Sharjah Cricket Association Stadium, Sharjah, the Asia Cup game was played at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium, Mirpur, Bangladesh
- Pakistan won the toss in both the games and elected to field
- India, batting first, scored 245 runs in both the games
- Krishnmachari Srikkanth opened the innings in 1986 and hit 2 sixes in his score of 75 runs and in 2014, Rohit Sharma opened the innings and scored 2 sixes in his score of 56 runs
- Srikkanth (75), Gavaskar (92) and Vengsarkar (50) – three Indian batsmen scored half-centuries in Austral Asia Cup while Rohit Sharma (56), Ambatti Rayudu (58) and Ravindra Jadeja (52*) did the same in 2014
- In the 1986 encounter, Saleem Malik (21) and Wasim Akram (3) – two Pakistan batsmen were run-out while in the 2014 duel, Misbah-ul-Haq (1) and Shoaib Maqsood (38) – two Pakistan batsmen were run-out
- Pakistan wicket-keeper, Zulqarnain, who went in to bat at no 10 was bowled by Chetan Sharma in the very first ball he faced in 1986 while in the 2014 clash, Saeed Ajmal, who went in to bat at No 10 was bowled by Ravichandran Ashwin in the very first ball he faced
- The No 11 batsman, Tauseef Ahmed, took a critical and an all important single to give strike to Javed Miandad to have the winning strike in 1986 while Junaid Khan, the No 11 batsman in the Asia Cup 2014 match took a crucial single to give strike to Shahid Afridi to score the winning runs
- Chetan Sharma took 3 wickets (Mudassar Nazar, Manzoor Elahi and Zulqarnain) and also bowled the last over of the match in 1986, while Ravichandran Ashwin took 3 wickets (Sharjeel Khan, Mihammad Hafeez and Saeed Ajmal) and bowled the last over of the match in 2014
- Javed Miandad hit a six to win the match. He had hit 3 sixes in his unbeaten innings of 116* in the Austral Asia Cup while Shahid Afridi hit a six to win the match and he also had 3 sixes in his unbeaten innings of 34* runs
- Both the encounters ‘went down to the wire’ and ended in the last over. Pakistan won both the games by 1 wicket
However, there were a few dissimilarities too. In the Austral Asia Cup, India had lost 7 wickets while scoring 245 runs while in the Asia Cup 2014, they lost 8 wickets for an identical score.
In the 1986 clash, Pakistan ended up scoring 248 runs for the loss of 9 wickets while in 2014, they notched up 249 runs losing the same number of wickets.
Javed Miandad scored a last ball six to win the game in 1986 while Shahid Afridi scored the winning six in the fourth delivery of the 50th over and won th game with 2 balls to spare.