In a one-sided affair, India once again proved to be a better side pulling a convincing victory against a formidable but unpredictable Pakistani side. With this 7-wicket victory, India has improved its net run rate and thrown open the doors of qualification which now seems to be an inevitable outcome.
Dubbed as the greatest cricketing rivalry, the Pakistani openers after having been asked to bat first made a tentative but solid start. After seeing off the first over by Jasprit Bumrah and getting one boundary, both the Pakistani openers, Abdullah Shafique and Imam-ul-Haq didn’t let Mohd Siraj settle down and thrashed the balls on either side of the pitch. Without taking any risk or letting the pressure of the big game dawn on them, they scored at a consistent rate of 5 runs per over.
However, on the last ball of the eight over, World number 2, Siraj drew the first blood when he caught aggressive Shafique right in front of the wickets and compensated his bleeding economy with the wicket. Soon after, India’s first bowling change, Hardik Pandya also chipped and ended a brewing partnership before it could start troubling India.
Both the senior campaigners, Babar Azam and Muhammad Rizwan consolidated the innings and made the black soil top appear as a batting-friendly pitch with Pakistan eyeing a high 300 target for India to chase in the mega encounter. But despite hitting the bad and some good balls to gaps and getting boundaries on regular intervals, the Pakistani side never got going and hardly scored above the run-a-ball rate, that is, they hardly breached 6 CRR (current run rate), let alone press foot on the accelerator.
Even when, both the senior batters were on the pitch and before Babar perished in a cheeky attempt to guide the ball for a single to the third man, the run rate was slightly above 5 as they were around the 150 mark by the start of the 30th over. Afterwards, the Pakistani batting line-up collapsed like a house of cards, an uncanny feature, unpredictability, for which Pakistan is famous. From 155/2 they were bundled out for 191/10 as all Indian bowlers registered two wickets a piece to their name.
While it is said that sweep and reverse sweep are effective tools to neutralise spin and disarray the spinner, Pakistani batters deployed it in desperation ending up getting knotted in the spin web and throwing away their wickets. Iftikar couldn’t read Kuldeep from his hand and dragged the ball to his wicket, Saud Shakeel got trapped in front of the wicket.
Other than that, Hasan Ali’s few boundaries after the dismissal of Babar, Pakistani batting looked like a nine-pin ball and no batter breached the double-figure mark. Meanwhile, Rizwan also could not provide stability and himself got dismissed before he could complete his fifty.
However, once the Indian side saw an opportunity, it relentlessly went after wickets and didn’t let the pressure ease a bit. This included inspired bowling changes by the skipper Rohit Sharma, ring fielders going aggressive to keep the batsmen on strike, and facing more balls.
Remarkably, low-scoring games have been dicey in the past as they had sent teams either in complacency or in shell, with batters blocking even juicy half-volleys, however, it doesn’t seem to be the case with the Indian innings.
Blistering start
With a clear target in sight, Indian openers started with a positive intent keeping in mind the longer format of this tournament and the importance of net run rate at later stages of the tournament. The positive intent was on display from the very first ball as skipper Rohit Sharma smashed Shaheen Afridi for a boundary picking his red-hot form from where he left it last time. As a batter, the World Cup stage has been a happy hunting ground for Rohit Sharma with 7 centuries in the mega tournaments already before his name.
Shubman Gill, who returned after being down with dengue made his World Cup debut and looked exuberant matching his skipper. While he was looking in dangerous form, he departed early after scoring a quickfire 16 off 11 balls and lofting the ball in the air for an easy catch for Shadab Khan to pouch.
With India being the hosting nation, the entire Narendra Modi stadium in Ahmedabad rallied along and lifted the spirit with soul-foul chantings.
The stage was set for Virat Kohli, arguably the best exponent of flawless batting in contemporary times, to chase down the score set by the Pakistani side. The master of the run chase, Kohli first fended off the first ball of Shaheen Afridi to avoid a re-run of Champions trophy kind of mishap. However, he got out on the score of 16 runs playing a drag shot, unlike his usual style.
By the end of the tenth over, India had accomplished 40% of the target with a brisk pace of 8 runs per over. Despite, Shreyas Iyer not being in the best of form, the senior campaigner Rohit Sharma milked the ballers for boundaries and never let the pressure rise on Iyer. He completed his fifty in just 36 balls, allowing India’s number 4 Iyer time to set himself up and spend some time on the pitch to boast his confidence for upcoming matches.
As India was cruising toward the target, Pakistani spinners looked like ordinary bowlers and gifted set Indian batters balls with boundaries written all over them. Just like the batting collapse, under pressure, the Pakistani team also displayed another facet that has become a definition trait of their side, dismal fielding.
When victory and his century were in sight, Rohit Sharma got deceived by a slower ball by Shaheen Afridi and the inspired bowling change gave Pakistan a last reason to rejoice. But by then, skipper Rohit Sharma had taken India to a commanding position from where KL Rahul and Shreyas Iyer nudged India to victory with risk-free singles and doubles. Apart from two aerial sixes, Shreyas Iyer kept the ball on the carpet and completed his gritty fifty taking India across the finish line.
