By Renin Wilben Albert

Copyright sportskeeda

Batting legend Sunil Gavaskar quipped that Pakistan suffered a shocking batting collapse in the Asia Cup 2025 final against India because their foundation was laid using adulterated cement. On a serious note, he admitted that Pakistan’s middle and lower order collapse proved to be the turning point in the contest.India defeated Pakistan by five wickets the Asia Cup 2025 final in Dubai on Sunday, September 28 to continue their domination in the battle between the two sides. Sent into bat, Pakistan made a solid start as their openers Sahibzada Farhan (57 off 38) and Fakhar Zaman (46 off 35) added 84 in 9.4 overs. At one stage, Pakistan were 113-1, but lost 9-33 to be bowled out for 146 in 19.1 overs.During a discussion on Sports Today, Gavaskar took a quirky dig at Pakistan while sharing his thoughts on their inexplicable batting collapse. Admitting that Pakistan losing their way with the bat was the defining factor of the game, he commented:”Of course. At one stage, they were 90-1. It looked like in the next 10 overs, they could easily get 10 runs an over, get another 100 runs and get to 190 or 200. That looked an eminent possibility. So those wickets that were taken… Kuldeep [Yadav] got three wickets in an over, but the big wickets were taken by Varun Chakaravarthy. He got both the top-scorers Sahibzada Farhan and Fakhar Zaman.”All the others were single-digit scores. These two, Farhan and Fakhar, were the ones who laid the foundation for Pakistan. It looks like in the foundation, the cement was adulterated,” the 76-year-old went on to add.While Farhan hit five fours and three sixes in his half-century, Fakhar struck two fours and two sixes. Saim Ayub (14 off 11) was the only other batter to reach double figures as Pakistan suffered a shocking collapse.Kuldeep Yadav starred with 4-fer to sink Pakistan in Asia Cup 2025 finalWhile Chakaravarthy dismissed both of Pakistan’s well-set openers, Kuldeep recovered from a poor start to finish with brilliant figures of 4-30. The left-arm wrist-spinner dismissed Ayub to claim his first wicket in the final and then got three wickets in one over – the in-form bowler sent back Salman Agha (8), Shaheen Afridi (0) and Faheem Ashraf (0).Left-arm spinner Axar Patel (2-26) and lead pacer Jasprit Bumrah (2-25) also came up with crucial contributions. In the chase of 147, Tilak Varma steered the ship with a sensible 69* off 53 balls.