India Goes 6-0 in World Cups Against Pakistan…

It was a bright sunny morning of February the 15^th in South Australia, an Australian gentleman with a personality of a Hollywood actor arrives at the middle of a 22 yard strip covered with dead grass among 55000 people across the 80 yard boundaries of what you called a beautiful cricket stadium the Adelaide Oval. The man was none other than, one of the most fearsome bowlers to play cricket, Brett Lee.

Everyone was arriving for the most anticipated contest in world cricket, India taking on Pakistan in Cricket World Cup 2015 match. History clearly belongs to India for such contest as on previous 5 occasions these two teams have competed on the same stage, India has come victorious every time.

Bret Lee while addressing about the pitch and match conditions conveyed that the team winning the toss and posting a good score will have an edge on the other side means team batting first might be the favorites for the game and his words became history in the books. Wasim Akram was seen conveying the same words on another TV channel in the local language.

Mark Nicholas along with MS Dhoni and Misbah-Ul-Haq walk towards the center of the stadium where ICC match referee Ranjan Madugalle was waiting for them to start the proceedings of this clash with the toss. Dhoni tossed the coin and Misbah called heads and to the misfortune of whole Pakistani nation it was tails. India won the toss and elected to bat first which means India had already won the match at that point by 20%.

Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan started slow but steadily for India. Muhammad Irfan was seen creating some difficulties for Indian batsmen but they continued to add slow runs until the 8^th over when Sohail Khan with a good short pitch delivery fetches the wicket of Sharma. Virat Kohli then arrived at the crease and continued the solid batting with Dhawan who goes on to score well paced 73 of 76 before getting run out with an excellent direct throw from Pakistani captain Misbah and the score was 163 for 2 after 29.5 overs. Next to join the party with Kohli was out of form Suresh Raina. It could not have been a better time for Raina to come among the runs and he did what all of India was expecting from him. He along with Kohli disrupted the middle overs from Pakistani spinners and went on to made quick fire 74 of 56 balls.

Virat Kohli in a pressure mounting game proved again that why he is rated as one of the most outstanding ODI player of this age. Pakistani poor fielding display provided him with couple of chances out of which one was a dolly missed by the make shift wicket keeper Umar Akmal. Kohli never looked back after that chance and went on to made superb century which he rated after as one of the best of his career. Kohli made 107 of 126 balls with 8 boundaries.

India was all set for a total of around 350 until Sohail Khan and Wahab riaz in a partnership of a death bowling displayed a fabulous performance restricting India to 300 out of their 50 alotted overs. Sohail Khan was the standout performer for Pakistan who finishes with 5 for 55. Pakistan was set giant chase of 301 runs to beat the record of India’s straight world cup wins over them.

Pakistan started their innings rather poorly by losing Younis Khan on the score of 11. Ahmed Shahzad was then involved in a 50 plus runs partnership with Haris Shoail. Haris was batting well on 36 before getting a peach of a delivery from Ashwin and edged it to slips where Raina made no mistake. Pakistan was 79 for 2 when captain Misbah arrived. Ahmed Shahzad also did not last for long and went out after getting scored 47 runs and Pakistan were 102 for 3.  At that point of time India was on the high and Pakistani batsmen lost their cool and their wickets too. Sohaib Maqsood and Umar Akmal went out of the ground before even troubling the scorers. Pakistan was then 103 for 5.

One cannot think of an Indo-Pak encounter without a controversy and such was the case this time around also. Ravindra Jadeja was bowling the 25^th over of the Pakistani innings when Umar Akmal misses the bowl, Dhoni collected the bowl cleanly and went on for an appeal which was at first rejected by the on-field umpire but Indians were not convinced and took a referral. As long as the replays were showing there was never a contact made with bat and bowl. Neither the snicko technology shows any disturbance in the graph all was set that the decision will remain same as the on-field call until the big screen shows that he has been given out by the third umpire. Everyone was shocked at that time including the broadcasting commentators. How this can be given out? Why the benefit of doubt if there was any not given to the batsman? Was the discussion on all the channels for 5 minutes. This controversy is still to be addressed that why Akmal was given out in such a manner.

After that Afridi spent a little time on the field with Misbah, but he could only manage to score 22 runs and Pakistan were 149 for 6. Misbah was the lonely soldier of the Pakistani innings. He batted with tail as long as he can and scored 76 runs of 84 balls and showed again that why he is being called Mr. Consistent all over the cricketing world. If any of the middle order batsmen stayed with Misbah for a little long Pakistan could have managed to break the Indian record. He batted professionally and with such ease that at no position Indian bowlers were seen troubling him.

Once again India managed to hold their nervous for as big an encounter as final of the world cup. The arch rivals defeated Pakistan not in a match but in every department of the game. MS Dhoni again showed his class with his proactive moves as a captain and reminded the world that why India is the defending champions.

This may have been the starting match for both India and Pakistan but it has set the tone for both the teams for the entire world cup. At one side of the border people were over the moon, distributing sweets, firing crackers and at the other side of the border there were only tears and disappointment. Pakistani fans have to wait may be for the next 4 years to fire their crackers, if both these teams do not manage to face each other again in this world cup.

Thank you so much for reading and enjoy the world cup till you read next time….