Singapore: Manprit Juneja and Lokesh Rahul batted brilliantly to help India beat Pakistan in the finals of U-23 Asian Cricket Council (ACC) Emerging Teams Cup here on Sunday. Juneja scored 51 and while Rahul scored a scintillating 93.

Earlier, it was some brilliant bowling from Indian Skipper Suryakumar Yadav alongside Sandeep Sharma and Baba Aparajith which played a great role in restricting Pakistan to a low score of 159 in the 47 overs that they batted at the Kallang ground.

Pakistan had a quite slow start as they added just 31 runs in the first eight overs of the match and soon Sandeep Warrier and Sandeep Sharma gave couple of quick blows to the arch-rivals to reduce them to 2/34. Sharma dismissed Mohammad Rizwan for 21 runs whereas Warrier got the wicket of Babar Azam for just 7 runs.

It was the time for Umar Waheed and Usman Salahuddin to do the repair work and with their 54-run stand they brough Pakistan back into the game. But the Indian skipper did the trick for his team as he got the wicket of Salahuddin for 15 and Pakistan was 3/88.

Baba Aparajith bowled a magical spell where he picked up three wickets for just 28 runs and made a great deal of contribution in reducing Pakistan to 9/107. The last-wicket pair of Usman Qadir (33) and Ehsan Adil (22) added 52 runs to the team total to give their side a fighting chance.

Yadav ended up with 2/20 in 10 overs whereas Sharma with 2/28 in eight overs that he bowled.

India was off to a flying start as Unmukt Chand and Rahul added 25 runs in the first five overs. Raza Hasan was introduced into the attack and Pakistan very soon got the wicket of Chand, who fell after scoring 15 runs for his side. Though, India didn’t have any more hick-ups thereafter as Juneja and Rahul chased down the target in 33.4 overs.

Rahul scored his third half-century of the tournament which was studded with 11 boundaries and one six, while Juneja who played the role of sheath-anchor played 77-ball to score 51 runs.

Brief scores: Pakistan U-23 159 all out in 47 overs (Umar Waheed 41, Usman Qadir 33; Sandeep Sharma 2-20, Suryakumar Yadav 2-20, Baba Aparajith 3-28) lost to India U-23 160/1 in 33.4 overs (KL Rahul 93*, Manprit Juneja 51*; Raza Hasan 1-41) by nine wickets.