In the build up to this Asia Cup contest between Hong Kong and India, the Press Trust of India news agency sent out some copy that was republished across several Indian websites.

It was the sort of ill-informed, disrespectful - verging on racist - nonsense that long-term followers of associate cricket are sadly used to.

The (unnamed) writer said that a buoyant India were “ready to steamroll minnows Hong Kong” in a “glorified net session”. They went on to claim that Hong Kong were a team “mostly comprising Pakistani and Indian expats” who “are not good enough to play first-class cricket in either of the two nations”.

This is obviously untrue. The extent of the writer’s “research” was no doubt looking at the squad list, seeing some names he didn’t recognise and making baseless assumptions about them based on their ethnic origin. Most of the Hong Kong squad were either born in Hong Kong or moved there as children.

And far from not being good enough for first-class cricket in India or Pakistan, a former Hong Kong player - Anshuman Rath who was born and raised there - is currently active in Indian domestic cricket having made his Ranji Trophy debut for Odisha earlier this year.

It also ignores what happened the last time these two sides met - an ODI as part of the 2018 Asia Cup where Hong Kong restricted India to 285-7 and then opened their reply with a 174 run partnership before they lost by just 26 runs.

Hong Kong coach Trent Johnston, no stranger to causing upsets himself no doubt used it as motivation for his team in the match at Dubai International Cricket Stadium, where Hong Kong captain Nizakat Khan won the toss and chose to put the India side that beat Pakistan by five wickets two days ago into bat first.

Hong Kong picked up the wicket of Rohit Sharma within the powerplay overs, from which India scored 44. A second wicket partnership of 56 between KL Rahul and Virat Kohli helped set up a platform for the end of the innings.

That partnership ended when Rahul was caught behind for 36 from the last ball of the 13th over, with the score on 94. This brought Suryakumar Yadav to the crease and he proceeded to club 68 from just 26 balls. Kohli accelerated alongside him, eventually finishing unbeaten on 59 from 44 balls.

The pair scored 54 from the last three overs - 26 of them coming from the last - as India reached a total of 192-2 from their 20 overs.

A daunting total for Hong Kong, and it was made even tougher when Yasim Murtaza was dismissed in just the second over of their reply, with Nizakat Khan managing to get run out off a free hit after a sharp piece of fielding by Ravindra Jadeja.

Knocks of 41 by Babar Hayat and 30 by Kinchit Shah kept Hong Kong nominally in the game but they were unable to kick on in the mid-to-late overs like India did.

A 17 ball 26 by Zeeshan Ali helped him and Scott McKechnie scored 36 from their last three overs but at 152-5 they fell 40 runs short of India’s total. Far from being steamrolled, Hong Kong had played well enough to outscore Pakistan when they played India two days ago.

Hong Kong will play Pakistan on Friday in a match that will decide the final spot in the Super 4 stage.