Silencing India’s false might has been a history for Pakistan, in wars, in sports and in everywhere. Cricket is a new not a new episode, though World Cup is.
Pakistan made history on Sunday night, defeating India for the first time in a World Cup fixture and ending a painful jinx that first began in 1992.
The Green Shirts were famous for their meltdowns against their arch-rivals in World Cup matches and had lost 12 straight matches to the Men in Blue.
They were again heavy underdogs heading into the game, with few giving them a chance. But they flipped the script and inflicted a chastening 10-wicket defeat on India. It was the first time either side had beaten the other by 10 wickets in a limited-overs fixture.
Chasing 152, captain Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan batted from start to finish as they made India’s ‘world class’ bowling attack look ordinary for once.
Speaking after the match, Indian captain Virat Kohli admitted that his team “did not execute the things that we wanted to but credit is certainly due — they outplayed us today”.
“They were very professional with the bat as well but we’re certainly not a team that presses the panic button, it’s the start of the tournament, not the end,” the Indian captain said, warning that “it’s not over yet.”
Meanwhile, Azam said after his victory: “We executed our plans well and the early wickets were very helpful.”
“The plan with Rizwan was to keep it simple. We tried to get deep in the crease and from about the eighth over, the dew came in and the ball came on nicely. This is just the start, we have [the] confidence to build on this win,” he said.
Earlier, Shaheen Shah Afridi took three wickets, including skipper Kohli for 57, but India managed 151 for seven in their high-voltage Twenty20 World Cup clash.
Left-arm fast bowler Afridi returned figures of 3-31 after a lethal first spell to hurt India after they elected to field first in the Super 12s encounter in Dubai.
Kohli scored his 29th T20 fifty to help the team rebuild before being caught behind off Afridi as Pakistan dismissed the star batsman for the first time in a World Cup game.
Afridi struck the first blow with an express delivery that swung in to trap Rohit Sharma lbw for a first ball duck and the bowler celebrated with his trademark open-arm gesture.
Kohli walked in amid raucous applause from the Indian fans inside the 20,000-strong crowd who were soon silenced by another ripper from Afridi in his second over.
The 1.98 metre bowler got KL Rahul with a delivery that came in sharply to take the batsman’s thigh pad and rattle the stumps.
Kohli and new batter, Suryakumar Yadav attempted to hit back with some positive shots as they smashed Afridi for a six each.
Wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan then pulled off a superb diving catch to cut short Yadav’s stay at the wicket with quick bowler Hasan Ali striking in his first over. Yadav made 11.
Rishabh Pant joined Kohli in the middle and the left-right batting pair rebuilt the innings and took India to 60-3 at the end of 10 overs.
Pant, a wicketkeeper-batsman who survived a close caught behind call off one of his attempted reverse sweeps, kept up the charge with adventurous strokeplay.
He hit Ali for two successive sixes but finally fell to Shadab Khan’s leg spin in the next over, top edging a ball that went high and into the hands of the bowler.
Pant made 39 off 30 balls.
Kohli stood firm to soak up the pressure to get to his 50 in 45 balls and help India to a competitive total.
Story at the half: India recovered well from an early Shaheen Afridi salvo to finish with 151-7. Shaheen picked up a wicket in each of his first two overs, first trapping Rohit Sharma for a golden duck in the opening over before trapping Lokesh Rahul in front of wickets in his second over.
After Hasan Ali had Suryakumar Yadav caught for 11, Virat Kohli and Rishabh Pant (39) stablished the Indian ship with a 53-run stand for the fourth wicket. As wickets tumbled around him, Kohli hung around and top scored for his side with 57 but was out in the penultimate over, just when a late surge was needed.
Shaheen was the pick of the bowlers (31-3) despite bowling an expensive penultimate over that leaked 17 runs.
6:39pm: Line-ups are in:
Pakistan: 1 Babar Azam (capt) 2 Mohammad Rizwan (wk) 3 Fakhar Zaman 4 Mohammad Hafeez 5 Shoaib Malik 6 Asif Ali 7 Shadab Khan 8 Imad Wasim 9 Hasan Ali 10 Haris Rauf 11 Shaheen Shah Afridi
India: 1 KL Rahul 2 Rohit Sharma 3 Virat Kohli (capt) 4 Suryakumar Yadav 5 Rishabh Pant (wk) 6 Hardik Pandya 7 Ravindra Jadeja 8 Bhuvneshwar Kumar 9 Varun Chakravarthy 10 Mohammed Shami 11 Jasprit Bumrah
Fans gather outside the Dubai International Cricket Stadium before the start of the match between Pakistan and India.
