Pakistan faced India three times in the Asia Cup last year (in 2025), and in those three matches, their opening batter Sahibzada Farhan scored three sixes off Jasprit Bumrah’s bowling. After hitting Bumrah for three maximums, two of which were in the Group A match played on September 14 and one in the final (on September 28), Farhan made a lot of headlines in both India and Pakistan. In fact, upon returning to Pakistan, he also featured in a documentary where he talked about dominating Bumrah and hitting him for sixes.
Now after more than six months of Asia Cup 2025, he has once again opened up about his experience of facing Bumrah and stated that hitting him for sixes gave him a lot of confidence.
In a video shared by ESPN Cricinfo on X, he also
admitted that Bumrah gave him a tough time at the start by bowling slower ones, yorkers and bouncers.
“Speaking about Bumrah, I don’t think there was only Bumrah in that (Indian) team. All of them were some of the best bowlers, like Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav. So it’s not that there was only Bumrah. But I started with Bumrah. You get confidence as a player when you hit a good player for a six. If you look at him, he gave me a tough time in the beginning. He was doing slower ones, yorkers and bouncers. He swings the ball, bowls outswing and inswing. It’s natural that it’s very difficult to play him. So you have to find your way. And when you cross that thing, you pass that thing. Then the rest of the bowlers seem easy to you, I think,” Farhan said in a video which is now going viral on the internet.
Farhan was Pakistan’s highest run-getter in the Asia Cup (217 runs in 7 matches), and he maintained his form in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2026 as well. In the 2026 edition of the men’s shortest-format mega-event, Farhan played six matches for the Salman Ali Agha-led side and, with the help of two centuries and two fifties, amassed a total of 383 runs. But in the high-voltage match against India at R. Premadasa Stadium, he failed to open his account even. He
