India dominated their arch-rivals Pakistan in what was supposed to be war minus the shooting, blowing the Babar Azam-led side by seven wickets in an ODI World Cup face-off at Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Saturday. In what is seen as the pinnacle of cricket by fans in the subcontinent, Indian captain Rohit Sharma emerged as the undisputed star of the match, scoring a 63-ball 86 to power his team to the modest target of 192 with as many as 19.3 overs to spare.
After the game, Bumrah won the Player of the Match award for his bowling figures of 2 for 19 in 7 overs. Meanwhile, in the dressing room, India’s wicketkeeper KL Rahul was named the best fielder for the match by team’s fielding coach T Dilip.
After Rahul was named for the award, the videos of his performance against Pakistan were played on the TV and the reaction of Virat Kohli was priceless.
Watch here:
Talking about the game, Jasprit Bumrah was a tiger on the prowl and Mohammed Siraj displayed wolf-like aggression before skipper Rohit completed the annihilation as India produced a near-perfect performance in one of the most lopsided World Cup games between the arch-rivals.
Rohit just casually flaunted his repertoire of strokes, which included a pull shot behind square of Shaheen Shah Afridi and a square driven six off Haris Rauf, as India were home by 8.05 pm local time.
The win was India’s eighth in the 50 over global event, where Pakistan had never been able to match their neighbours in terms of skill, strategy or execution since 1992.
It is very difficult to better perfection but if anything was synonymous with perfection, then decimating Pakistan for 192 in 42.5 overs would come closest.
Five bowlers, showing different facets of bowling and sharing equal spoils is rarity but there couldn’t have been a more opportune setting to tick all boxes like Rohit’s men did on the day.
Bumrah, Siraj (2/50 in 8 overs), Kuldeep (2/35 in 10 overs), Hardik Pandya (2/34 in 6 overs) and Ravindra Jadeja (2/35 in 9.5 overs) were relentless in their pursuit of choking the opposition into submission.
(With PTI Inputs)
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