Imperfect 10

Dubai, October 24

Pakistan today tore down the form book to bring pre-tournament favourites India down to earth with a huge thud with a dominant 10-wicket win in their Super 12 match at the T20 World Cup tonight.

This was India’s first-ever loss to Pakistan in any ICC World Cup — before tonight, India had won 11 of their 12 encounters in 50-over and T20 World Cups, while one match had been tied.

An exceptionally clinical Pakistan dominated Virat Kohli’s India in all departments of the game tonight.

Set 152 to win after Shaheen Shah Afridi’s 3/31 and Shadab Khan 1/22 restricted India to 151/7, Pakistan cruised to the target in 17.5 overs as skipper Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan batted through the innings without being troubled at all by India’s bowlers.

Azam scored an unbeaten 68 off 52 balls with six fours and two sixers, while Rizwan smashed 79 not out off 55, striking six fours and three sixers. The ease with which they scored the runs suggested that even 40 more runs would not have been enough for India tonight.

At the halfway stage of their innings, Pakistan were 71/0 (India were 60/3), and Kohli would have hoped that his spin bowlers would put pressure on the openers and prise out a wicket or two soon. But that did not happen. Varun Chakravarthy, a star of the IPL, posed no threat, ending up with 0/33 off four overs, while Ravindra Jadeja gave away 28 runs in his four. The pacers were, similarly, toothless against an opening pair that was calculated and unhurried in the chase of the modest target.

The target was achieved easily in the end, with Rizwan striking Mohammed Shami for 6, 4, 4 on the first three balls of the 18th over, while Azam took two off the fifth ball to wrap up the chase. Afridi was named the Man of the Match for his sensational bowling.

Afridi breathes fire

Earlier, Kohli wasn’t at his fluent best but his 57 off 49 balls was the saving grace in India’s modest 151/7.

Kohli’s 29th half-century in T20Is wasn’t as good as some of his other innings but considering that he was trying to rescue his team after it had been reduced to 6/2 in 2.1 overs by Afridi, this knock was important.

Afridi, having removed Rohit Sharma (0) and KL Rahul (3) early, got Kohli too, in the 19th over.

Kohli got support from Rishabh Pant (39 off 30 balls) during a 53-run stand, but the captain had to do the bulk of work in a high-pressure scenario, something he has got accustomed to in the past one decade. His innings had five fours and a six as India tried to get to a score which would give the bowlers something to defend.

Afridi produced two unplayable deliveries at the biggest stage under pressure, getting the Indian openers out cheaply. In the case of Rohit, the first ball he got was a beauty, full and incoming, and the batsman was caught LBW. Rahul thought the ball would go straight but it came in to breach his defence break the stumps.

Suryakumar Yadav (11) did get a six over backward square-leg off Afridi and a four off Imad Wasim, but he edged one from Hasan Ali to the diving Mohammed Rizwan behind the stumps.

Pant joined Kohli as the Powerplay score read a disastrous 36/3. They added 53 runs in 6.4 overs to get some momentum back in an exciting stand dominated by the left-hander. The Indian captain lofted Afridi straight into his team’s dug-out for a six, and for Hasan Ali, he reserved an exquisite square drive before he let Pant take over the show.

Pant first played a lap shot off leg-spinner Shadab Khan and then back-cut Mohammed Hafeez from the middle-stump to get two boundaries, before striking Hasan Ali for two sixes. Shadab had the last laugh as a mistimed slog-sweep by Pant resulted in a return catch.

Kohli, who was playing the second fiddle, then took charge as he attacked Hasan with a pull and a cover drive as 10 runs came off the 16th over.

However, Pakistani bowlers didn’t err much in the final overs to keep the score under check, and a lot of credit for that should go to Harris Rauf, who had figures of 1/25 off four overs. — TNS, Agencies

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