Rohit Sharma's India cannot take Nizakat Khan's Hong Kong lightly, here's what happened in 2018

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India are set to take on Hong Kong in their second fixture of Group A of the Asia Cup 2022 after a hard-earned victory in the opener against arch-rivals Pakistan. Unarguably, India face a lighter challenge compared to their first match of the tournament in terms of pressure and quality cricket. However, it is a very good opportunity for players like KL Rahul to find their mojo back after a disappointing first T20I game of the 2022 year. Being said a less difficult opponent to face than Pakistan on any day, the Rohit Sharma-led side will not give their opponents any easy pickings given the qualification to the Super Four is still pending.

The other night, Hardik Pandya was the savior for India as they thumped arch-rivals Pakistan on Sunday (August 28) with 2 balls to spare chasing a tricky total of 148 on a good bowling wicket. Obviously, the quality of Hong Kong bowling, to put it politely, won’t match up to Pakistan, but there is always a fear as one doesn't exactly know what to expect from an unknown entity.

To be more elaborate about the 'surprise packages' and 'unknown threats', we bring a small piece of detail from the Asia Cup 2018 when the two sides clashed in the ODI-format.

India shrugged off a surprising defeat against Hong Kong in 2018

To start off, the stand-in skipper that night in place of Virat Kohli was the current permanent skipper himself, Rohit Sharma. After the clash Rohit said that there were a lot of things that didn't go to plan but winning the game was important. 

What happened? Batting first, India posted a total 285 with the loss of 7 wickets, a blistering ton from opener Shikhar Dhawan helped India a lot. The left-hander scored a massive 127 off 120 creaming 16 boundaries and 2 sixes in his innings. Later on, Ambati Rayudu 60 (70) and Dinesh Karthik 33 (38) held the innings with Kedhar Jadhav playing a small part in the end scoring 28 off 27.

Then, Hong Kong's opening pair of Nizakat Khan and captain Anshuman Rath shook the Indian bowling attack during their chase scoring 92 (115) and 73 (97), respectively. However, Kuldeep Yadav and Khaleel Ahmed gave India a breakthrough and later on the Men in Blue bounced back to clinch the victory by 26 runs. Notably, Hong Kong finished 259/8 after 50 overs in reply to India's 285/7.