A rivalry widely accused of being over-hyped turned a shade bluer in Dubai on Sunday, as India beat Pakistan by six wickets to extend their hold over them and put one foot into the semi-finals of the ICC Champions Trophy. Set a target of 242 after some good work from their spinners and Hardik Pandya overcame sloppiness in the field, India won in the 43rd over of their chase with Virat Kohli punctuating his big-match temperament, as well as record against Pakistan, with his 51st ODI century and Shreyas Iyer drawing a bit fat line under his credentials as the team’s best option at No 4 with 56 off 67 deliveries.
The result put India’s record against Pakistan at ICC events to 18-4 and eliminated Mohammad Rizwan’s team from the Champions Trophy after just two games. The gulf between the two teams has only widened, and the aura around India versus Pakistan continues to fade.
The start for India, however, after Rizwan chose to bat, was shaky. Mohammed Shami bowled a poor first over in which there were five wides and apart from struggling to land the ball in the right spot two deliveries in a row, India’s most experienced bowler was down on pace. When Shami pulled up four deliveries into his third over clutching his right shin, prompting the team physio to rush onto the field, matters wore a distinctly worrying look for India.
Babar Azam, struggling for form coming into his 14th match versus India, began to thread the gaps on the offside with purpose. To Axar Patel, he skipped out and whipped a four over midwicket with power. Something was brewing, you felt.
As the former Pakistan captain Sarfaraz Ahmed, whose team won the last Champions Trophy in 2017 by beating India at The Oval, was addressing a group of Indian journalists in the stadium’s press box and extoling the virtues of keeping your wits in a high-pressure match such as this, India took their first wicket. Pandya came on as second change and pitched the second delivery of his second over – after the first was caressed for four into the covers – wider of off stump to Babar, who could not resist the urge to drive again. The edge was taken by KL Rahul and the sea of blue Indian jerseys in the crowd sighed in relief.
A score of 41 for no loss one delivery into the ninth over was far from a strong start, but in the context of the rivalry and semi-final equations, it represented a worrying beginning for India. By the time Sarfaraz had wrapped up his question-and-answer session with us Indian journalists, Pakistan were two down with Axar nailing a direct hit to run out Imam-ul-Haq.
Matters slowed from here. Pandya sent down six overs on the trot for just 16 runs, with 26 dot balls in there. Shami came back and bowled two overs for five runs. Axar kept everything tidy with his left-arm spin, even if he veered too frequently onto the left-handed Saud Shakeel’s pads. Kuldeep Yadav’s first four overs produced 15 runs, until the horse started to bowt in his fifth as Shakeel swept and reverse-swept two fours.
Shakeel scored 62 and Rizwan made 46 in a partnership worth 104, but watching the two go about their business you didn’t exactly get the sense that this alliance could burgeon into something really threatening. Rizwan consumed 77 deliveries for his 46, an innings that contained three fours. When he was out trying to hit Axar, two runs after being dropped by Harshit Rana, the collapse was in motion.
Pakistan went from 151/2 to 165/5 with Ravindra Jadeja and Pandya picking up wickets, and when Kuldeep took out Salman Agha and Shaheen Shah Afridi off successive deliveries with Pakistan’s score on 200, you knew that a fightback was not out of the question. Khushdil Shah and Harif Raus swung a six each at the death before the innings ended on 241 in the final over, with Rana getting his first wicket against Pakistan.
Rohit Sharma didn’t make too much of an impact – even though one whipped six had the fans purring – as a terrific delivery from Afridi yorked him on 20, but Gill and Kohli ensured that dismissal was a minor blip. Gill played some gorgeous drives into the offside and down the ground while Kohli set the tone with a couple pleasing punches of his own, thus settling the nerves of the large Indian contingent in the stands.
Dropped on 35 by Khushdil at midwicket when he mistimed a short-arm jab off Rauf, Gill moved got as far as 46 before he was beaten all ends up and bowled by a lovely delivery from the legspinner Abrar Ahmed.
The difference between Kohli’s and Rizwan’s innings was the intent and running between the wickets. Kohli reached his half-century in 62 balls with the help of four fours, whereas Rizwan had three fours in his 46 but faced 41 dot balls. This is where Kohli’s game awareness and sense of occasion trumped Pakistan’s bowlers and allowed him to take the game away from them after Gill’s dismissal. Smart tip-and-runs, the odd drive and a couple of cracking pulls off Rauf.
Iyer was slow off the blocks but opened up in the 30th over with two fours off Khushdil, and in that same over he was the beneficiary of a drop at midwicket, this time put down by Shakeel, when on 25. Two balls later, Iyer lofted Agha for six. His calmness is what separates Iyer from other contenders for the No 4 spot, and with another very handy innings – his third fifty in five ODI innings, to go with a 44 – the 30-year-old again showed why he belongs in this lineup. That said, Iyer’s shot to get out with victory in sight would be a personal downer, given that finishing the job in Kohli’s presence would have been ideal. Pandya joined Iyer momentster, strangled down the leg side by Afridi, but Kohli was around to complete the chase. Kohli, during his unbeaten 100, broke Sachin Tendulkar’s mark of being the fastest to 14,000 runs in ODI cricket by getting there in 287 innings.
