Bhuvneshwar returns with 12 dots, and a wicket

A greenish pitch and Bhuvneshwar Kumar make for a mouth-watering prospect for fans of seam bowling. His first over back with the Indian team was a maiden, and the second one was a wicket maiden. Bhuvneshwar teased UAE wicketkeeper Swapnil Patil with a couple of away-swingers first, but could not get the edge. The line had been a bit too wide of off stump. So he choked the batsman on middle with a back of a length away-swinger, the leading edge presented itself and the off side cordon went in for the catch. But Bhuvneshwar, having done all the hard work, wanted to see it through himself, so he shooed the rest away and pulled off a lovely caught and bowled.

Hardik Pandya has had a knack for picking up wickets, so much that it is hard to keep in mind that he is a batting allrounder. His scalp tonight came while he was trying to make up his mind where to bowl from. He went around the wicket and delivered a bouncer because Rohan Mustafa had charged him. Then he went over to zing one past the left-hander's shoulders again. Back around again for the third ball, short again, which Mustafa hacked straight to cover's hands. The speed gun showed it was a barely believable 145 kph. Equally so was the fact that India had strung together back-to-back maidens, for the second time, in the first 10 overs.

Mohammad Naveed had his hand up and was trotting over to celebrate with his team-mates. He had just bowled a fine delivery, that was angled across Shikhar Dhawan and surprised him for extra bounce. Patil, behind the stumps, and the two-man slip cordon went up in appeal and then their faces clouded with disbelief. It was then that Naveed turned around and saw umpire Sharfuddoula completely unmoved. Dhawan had been watching him as well, anxiously, for replays suggested he really had edged it.

After that testing over, Rohit Sharma decided it was time to get back to normal service in T20 cricket. He flew down the track and lofted UAE captain Amjad Javed over the covers for a handsome six. That short was bookended by a streaky four off the inside edge and a sublime one through midwicket. In the next over from Naveed, Rohit hammered a pull and rode his outside edge for a couple more fours. That was 22 runs in five balls or one-fourth of India's target.