Former Indian captain, Mohammad Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja, also a former Indian player, both quit international cricket on June 3, 2000, yet regrettably, neither of them has been able to put their international careers to a successful conclusion by winning their penultimate assignment. The Indian team’s performance on the international stage resulted in a loss by 44 runs versus Pakistan in the 5th game of the Asia Cup 2000, which happened in Dhaka.

In the match, Pakistan opted to bat first. The openers, Saeed Anwar scored 43 off 35 balls & Imran Nazir scored 29 off 44 balls, and got things off to a good start, as the two of them contributed 74 runs to the initial stand. During the 13th over of the game, Anil Kumble was successful in sending Anwar back to the dugout, which was a significant breakthrough for his team.

After then, Mohammad Yousuf scored a ton by executing an incredible knock. Yousuf’s innings of 100 runs (not out) off 112 deliveries was a significant contributor to his team’s achievement of a challenging number of 295/7 in 50 overs. His innings included nine fours and one six over the boundary.  Thereafter, the captain of the Pakistani team, Moin Khan, assisted the side massively to set a large total on the scoreboard by hitting 46 runs off of 47 deliveries.

Both Famous Indian Cricket Personalities Came Through A Rough Patch

As a result of losing their first 2 scalps and amassing just 68 runs in 12 overs, the team captained by Sourav Ganguly did not seem to have a sufficient sense of confidence in their hunt. Azharuddin was sent in to bat at the fourth position, however, he only faced three balls during his session. The former captain, who was born in Hyderabad and played for Pakistan, was knocked out for just one run by the Pakistani all-rounder Abdul Razzak in the 14th over of their innings.

Although Azharuddin was unable to accomplish anything significant, Jadeja had other, very different goals in mind. The man who was born in Gujarat had an outstanding knock, scoring 93 runs off 103 balls to put his team back into the game. In what was supposed to be his last international encounter, Jadeja did not end up scoring the century that would have given him his seventh ODI century. Imran Nazir took the one and only wicket that he was responsible for throughout the match in the 48th over of the game, which brought an end to his cameo performance.

In the course, Jadeja’s courageous effort was not enough to rescue India, who were bowled out for 251 runs in 47.4 overs. Jadeja has participated in 196 One-Day Internationals (ODIs) and has scored 5359 runs for an avg of 37.47. In ODIs, he scored six hundreds and thirty half-centuries.

In his stellar ODI career, Azharuddin featured 334 games and amassed 9378 runs at an average of 36.92 runs. In ODIs the former captain scored 7 hundreds and 58 fifties.