Asia Cup 2022: Sanjay Manjrekar backs underfire Arshdeep Singh, says his dropped catch wasn't the game-changer

Dubai, Sep 6: Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar reckons Arshdeep Singh - who faced a lot of criticism for his dropped catch in the Asia Cup 2022 encounter against Pakistan - would have pouched that catch on 99 times out of 100 but perhaps the pressure of an India-Pakistan contest got the better of him.

Manjrekar - who is part of the commentary panel in the ongoing tournament - did the post-match presentation after the game and also revealed why he didn't ask any questions to the Indian captain regarding that dropped chance for he believes that moment alone wasn't responsible for the loss of the Men in Blue in the Super 4 stage.

Speaking exclusively on SPORTS18's daily sports news show 'SPORTS OVER THE TOP', Manjrekar said, "I'm going to become like a psychologist. I'll go very deep into the psyche of people. What is pressure? Pressure is when you have to perform an act and when performing the act, a thought comes into your head that this is a very important act. That's when pressure gets to you. So, in normal course, Chinmay for example would have taken that catch. Anybody would have taken that catch who's played a bit of cricket. Arshdeep would have taken that catch normally, almost with one eye closed, 99 times out of 100. Maybe a thought that this is India vs Pakistan. This is a crucial catch and Asif Ali got him to drop that. It's one of those things that happens.

"And that's why I didn't ask Rohit Sharma whether that catch was the turning point. Because it shouldn't be just one drop catch at a certain stage of the game. Pinning the blame on Arshdeep Singh, a young cricketer would not have been fair. You don't lose cricket matches because of one moment. There are many contributing factors with which you lose a game, because all of those factors come by."

The 54-year-old cricketer-turned-commentator also threw light upon what went wrong with Team India's batting order in the high-stakes encounter. The Mumbaikar said Indian batters played high-risk shots but unfortunately they lost wickets in heaps and the lower middle-order failed to contribute.

"I don't think the tail is too long because when you look at the batting ability of the team that played in the last game on paper, for example, if you line them down, you had somebody like a Deepak Hooda at 7. So that's plenty of batting. So, I don't think that was an issue. It was one of those things when you have this high-risk approach on the odd occasion, what will happen is that wickets will fall at the worst possible time. Suryakumar Yadav just got himself out, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul. So, it's one of those things. But India still ended up getting 180. I thought they could have gotten 210-220 if there was more contribution from the lower half. Interestingly, in the first 10 overs, India got 93 and in the next 10, they got 88. But it's one of the occupational hazards of this approach. But not because the tail is too long," Manjrekar added further.

India play Sri Lanka in their second Super 4 stage match in Dubai on Tuesday (September 6).