India win the Asia Cup despite their Ferraris having handbrakes on

Their new-ball bowling wasn't hot, their ace spinners weren't at their peak, and the batting order didn't always work - but they still found a way to be better than the other teams.

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Jasprit Bumrah is getting slapped over long off. Let’s be honest: it’s not the first time this tournament we’ve seen this. He’s been hit for runs often, and he doesn’t quite look himself. At the other end, Shivam Dube is bowling. Hardik Pandya was supposed to be there, but he’s not.

It’s Dube, who doesn’t really bowl at that much in the IPL, and goes for a lot of runs when he does. If there was ever a chance to beat India in a knockout game, it would be now: Hardik injured, Bumrah out of form and Dube having to step up and bowl a lot more. If Pakistan are going to play India - who’s a better team in a big final - and beat them, this is the day to do it.

And it doesn’t stop there, right? The spinners are not completely on top of their game either for India. They go for a little bit of extra runs, especially Kuldeep Yadav.

But if you look a little bit closer and scratch the surface just a little bit, Pakistan was kind of all puff and puff.

There was a lot of noise. There was a lot of violence. There was a lot of swinging the bat, but they weren’t going at more than nine runs over. They then managed to lose a phenomenal amount of wickets in a short period of time to not just open up an end, but open up both ends consistently at all times.

And then when they were bowling, even when they got themselves massively ahead in the game, they missed the stumps with a run out at one stage. They dropped a fairly simple catch out on the boundary. Pakistan were in front in this game at several times and they made a lot of errors to let India back in.

And so when you look at this Asia Cup, the thing that you really notice is even when India were bad, everyone else was so much worse.

India are the Asia Cup champions, and it was easy. And by easy, I mean they didn’t lose a game all the way through the tournament. It wasn’t really easy in any other sense of the word. They battled form and had some issues with the way their batting lineup came out and how they used their bowlers at times. But they were, without any question, the best team in this tournament.

They just were better than the other teams. Think about Sri Lanka. They were playing really good cricket and everyone thought they are the team that should be the second-best in Asia on paper and form. And if anyone’s got a chance to beat India, you can kind of have a look at the players they have and think there is a chance.

And yet, by the time the Super Fours came around, Sri Lanka were fifth. They did not turn up for that at all. Except for one particular game, which is the one where they should have beaten India.

I thought they chased really well until the end where Dasun Shanaka forgot to run again, ended up in the super over and didn’t get anywhere. But that’s a perfect example of India not playing brilliantly in that game, but Sri Lanka were playing a better version of their cricket and could actually push.

That’s because when you’re playing good cricket, even against a better team, you have the chance of capitalizing on those mistakes. But they didn’t, did they? Sri Lanka still made an error.

And if you go through the entire tournament, India had a lot moments where they just let the other team in or didn’t play it their best. I would argue even the Oman game is one where at times you thought they’re just not playing the kind of cricket that you would expect them to.