Before This six previous World Cup meetings between India and have not produced any tight, but nearly all of it was from India side. The other side was a shadow, not just of what it had been in the past, but even of what it had been two weeks ago.
Rohit Sharma had scored his second hundred in 3 games, Kl Rahul played good knock of 50 and was involved in first hundred partnership with Rohit. Virat had a good know we’re INDIA went on to score 336.
These efforts set Pakistan a target of 337. This was a flat pitch, and India lost one of their two main fast bowlers, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, to hamstring stiffness after he had delivered just 2.4 overs, leaving the fifth and sixth bowlers 17.2 overs, rather than just 10, to handle. And yet, apart from a brief period during a 104-run second-wicket stand between Fakhar Zaman and Babar Azam, Pakistan never threatened to make a chase of it. Vijay Shankar and Hardik Pandya bowled well to compensate Bhabi. Absence and Pakistan played them carefully – and partly because Pakistan was looking to keep wickets in hand, DLS par score, given that rain had already caused a couple of brief interruptions.
Kuldeep Yadav had given breakthrough by removing Babar Azam, then there was a collapse which dented Pakistan and they went way back in Dls method. Eventually, INDIA won the match my 89 runs.
Virat Kohli | Winning skipper :
To be honest, the pitch wouldn’t have made much of a difference. The only factor that I thought was different was that the pitch started turning towards the last half of our innings.
We wanted to bowl first in overcast conditions as the pitch had something in it, and if we bowled in the right areas, there was enough for the bowlers. The template has been really nice in the first three games till now – Rohit single-handedly winning us the first game, a team effort in the second and today was Rohit’s day again.
You could say that to get to 330, you need a team effort, KL set a great foundation with Rohit and Rohit after getting to 70-75 is unstoppable and he showed again why he’s such a good ODI player. It allowed me to play a certain kind of role and it allowed Hardik to come and explode in the end. It has worked till now, gives us a lot of solidity in the middle and it is a role that I am happy playing for the team.
It is going really nicely at the moment. Kuldeep was brilliant, those guys were only trying to play him out. A longer spell helped in that situation and he was getting into a rhythm. They were thinking that he would go out of the attack sooner rather than later. That ball to dismiss Babar was just outstanding with the drift, the turn and just beating the batsman batting so well.
This is the best he has been bowling since coming to England and him confident with Chahal is going to be an important factor for us in the tournament. I think they outplayed us in the Champions Trophy final, but apart from that, we have played good cricket against them. If you focus on this game with too much emotion, things can go haywire.
We never approach these games from the fans’ atmosphere, but as cricketers, we need to be professional and understand what needs to be done on the field. Bhuvi’s case looks like a niggle, a case of slipping on the footmarks.
It doesn’t look too serious at the moment and looks like he could recover in a couple of games from now, a maximum of three games. He is going to be an important factor for us so hopefully, he can recover in time. But we have Shami with us and it shouldn’t be much of a worry for us. Even Bhuvi doesn’t think his niggle is too bad and that time would heal it.
Sarfaraz Ahmed | Losing skipper:
We won a good toss but unfortunately we didn’t bowl in the right areas, Credit goes to Rohit, he played really well. Our plan was to pitch it up but we didn’t hit the right areas.
We won a good toss but we just didn’t capitalize and conceded too many runs. I think the ball was turning which is why we picked two spinners, who bowled well, but the Indian batsmen played them really well.
We were going really well with the bat as well, but we lost two.
