A day out from the match, as Pakistan's nets wound down and India began to set up, the DJ blared 'Fast Company' by the Eagles into the evening air. Written by the band for their teenage daughters, the song is about the pull of the crowd and peer pressure, the urge to move as others move without ever stopping to ask if it's your race to run.

Lookin' up the road ahead

You can't see very far

Remember where you come from

Remember who you are

It was difficult not to think of those lines 24 hours later, as Hardik Pandya ran in to bowl to Babar Azam with two slips waiting.

This was a pitch on which Pakistan had bowled 18 of their 20 overs with spin, five of their six in the powerplay. Salman Agha, taking the new ball, had created immediate impact, dismissing Abhishek Sharma and setting an early tone that spin would shape the contest.

When Saim Ayub followed, he extracted sharp turn in his two overs inside the PowerPlay, with nearly 70 percent of his deliveries deviating more than four degrees, which is significant movement from a batter's perspective and the sort of evidence that convinces you that there's one and only one way to go on that surface.

It would have been easy for India to follow.

They had prepared for a sluggish surface anyway. Kuldeep Yadav had come in for Arshdeep Singh, effectively leaning into their slow-pitch Asia Cup template that favoured an extra spinner. And Axar Patel is no stranger to taking the new ball.

There were enough reasons, tactical and recent, to open with spin. But Suryakumar Yadav did not.

India bowled four overs of seam in the PowerPlay instead, two each from Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah. And all on the trot. In fact, the first genuine off-pace delivery did not arrive until the 18th ball of the innings.

So in hindsight, it all made sense why Pandya had two slip catchers instead of men in front of the wicket on a slow deck. He wasn't rolling his fingers just yet. There was no need for deception just yet. All he had come in with early on was hit-the-deck seam and hard lengths, the kind that's served him well in the past. That's how he rushed an in-form batter in Sahibzada Fahan and delivered the first breakthrough for India.

Then came Jasprit Bumrah, who hasn't been taking the new ball for India but here, he steamed in, his opening over clocking an average speed of 139 kmph.

Bumrah's inswinger to left-handed Saim Ayub from over the wicket reminded of his delivery to Keaton Jennings in Southampton 2018, except this time the batter knew that Bumrah could bowl that ball and still could not prevent it. It was skill, not surprise. Three deliveries later, Agha swung across the line, an option that may have felt necessary with the asking rate climbing but never truly felt available on that surface.

Pandya had struck first. Bumrah followed. And before Pakistan could steady themselves, Axar Patel chimed in with another.

The ball from Axar that dismissed Babar Azam skidded on despite being delivered at under 85 kmph. At that pace in the first innings, Pakistan had turned it square. Here, it hurried through just enough.

It was the fourth wicket inside the PowerPlay, and the chase, for all practical purposes, had unravelled before it had begun. If Ishan Kishan had taken the match away in the first six overs with the bat, scoring 77 off 50 as the rest of the batters managed 95 off 80 balls, India's seamers had held it firmly in the next six by trusting what they trust best. They did not overthink the surface. They did not chase what had worked for Pakistan. They stayed with their lengths, their pace, their plan.

"If you look at the game, the ball spun half as much in the second innings, the ball skid on," Mike Hesson, Pakistan head coach, said after the match. So there's nothing wrong with the decision to bowl first, it was the quality of the bowling in the first six overs and also the way Ishan Kishan played in terms of...took the game away from us. So certainly nothing to do with the pitch slowing down.

"It didn't slow down, it spun less. So you've got to look at the facts rather than the emotive accountability. I mean, the ball, they bowled nicely up front with a seam. We took some poor options, but it certainly wasn't the pitch."

And when Pakistan found themselves chasing that above-par total, the pressure crept in. "When you see a score and you know that it's probably a little bit above par, you almost feel like you've got to play like Superman and take the game on earlier than the conditions allow you to," Hesson said. "And I think we lost wickets early on to shots that I'm sure on that surface they were pretty tough options."

It was not, he insisted, the occasion. "It wasn't necessarily the occasion, it was actually a cricketing skill that let us down today."

Nor was it the toss. "The ball spun half as much in the second innings, the ball skid on... it certainly wasn't the pitch."

And that, perhaps, is where the evening quietly turned. One side resisted the pull of what had just worked, staying with their own method and trusting that it would hold. The other, chasing a total that felt just out of reach, went searching for momentum on a surface that was asking for patience.

Peer pressure does not always come from the crowd. Sometimes it comes from the scoreboard. Sometimes from the previous over. Sometimes from what has just worked at the other end. Most times, it helps to remember who you are and trust your own plan.

They don't know nothing you don't know

Ain't got nothing you ain't got

But you keep on running, you keep on running with the

Fast company, fast company