For me, ball bounced before keeper: Salman on Fakhar's caught-behind

Pakistan captain Salman Ali Agha questioned the legality of Fakhar Zaman's dismissal, suggesting the ball may have bounced before reaching wicketkeeper Sanju Samson.

"I don't know about the decision. It's obviously the umpire's job. Umpires can make mistakes. And I have no problem with that. But it does look like it bounced before it was carried to the keeper," Salman said after India beat Pakistan by six wickets in Dubai.

"But I might be wrong. I don't know. You can say the way he was batting, if he batted throughout the powerplay, we probably would have scored 190. But yeah, that's the umpire's call. And they can make mistakes. I don't know. To me, it bounced before it reached the keeper."

Cricbuzz's ball-by-ball commentary described the dismissal as follows:

2.3 Hardik Pandya to Fakhar Zaman, out Caught by Samson!! That's the end of Fakhar. He's hanging around and the umpires want to check if the ball has carried. Oh this seems a little tricky. It's very close to the ground before going into the gloves - does he have his fingers under it? A zoomer has been employed and the third umpire still needs another angle. Okay now he seems convinced to make a decision. And that decision is OUT. Fakhar can't believe it and is shaking his head as he walks off. He stood around a little confused before starting to make his way back. But the decision is final and he has to go. It's an off-cutter that has done the trick for Hardik. Rolls his fingers across it, grips a tiny bit off a length and the edge is found to the keeper.

That close call went India's way, but Pakistan's batting faltered after a bright start. They had raced to 55/1 in six overs, their highest powerplay score against India in 15 T20Is, surpassing 54/0 in Ahmedabad in 2012, and were 91/1 at the halfway stage, the third-highest 10-over total in this Asia Cup and comfortably their best against India. But from there, they added only 30 runs in the next six overs while losing three wickets.

On a pitch that was truer for batting, Pakistan's middle order struggled to find the gaps once the ball got older. They managed just two boundaries after the powerplay, both coming in the last three overs: one off a full toss, the other off a top edge.

Salman felt the final total of 171/5 was competitive, though still under par.

"It wasn't a disappointing total, but we should have scored 10-15 more runs. After 10 overs, when the ball gets soft, it is not easy to score runs in this venue. But the start we had, we should have scored 180 plus," the Pakistan captain said.

"Wickets are such that it is not easy for a new batter to come and play shots straight away. So, a set batsman should go till the end. Indian batters also felt it hard to read the pace of the wicket. We lost two set batters in that phase and it derailed our momentum."

Pakistan have ended up batting first in all four fixtures at this Asia Cup, finishing with scores of 160/7, 127/9, 146/9 and 171/5.

Salman spoke about how pitches in the UAE aren't as flat as the ones back home, and it's affected how they go about their batting.

"These conditions are not for 200. These conditions don't allow you to score 200," Salman said. "You have to respect the conditions. You can't say that you want to score 200 if the par score is 160, that would be careless.

"If you get us good pitches, then you will see the same kind of batting that you saw against Bangladesh [at home]. So, I think there is a lot of difference in the conditions."