(UTV | DUBAI) – Pakistan thrashed India, one of the favourites tipped to win the World Cup in what was build as a high octane match.
Pakistan had never defeated India in a world cup match before this encounter and they recorded their first win in emphatic fashion.
Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan hit unbeaten half-centuries as Pakistan completed a resounding win over India in their T20 World Cup campaign-opener in Dubai.
Pakistan made absolute light work of the 152 target set by India winning the match with ten wickets to spare.
The opening pair for Pakistan Captain Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan paced their innings to perfection with shots all around the ground.
They kept on converting singles into two’s and picked boundaries at will.
The win was setup by the fantastic bowling performance of Pakistan especially Shaheen Shah Afridi who accounted for Rohit Sharma, K L Rahul and Virat Kohli.
India had never lost a World Cup game, 50-overs or T20, to Pakistan, and even the individual results had gotten painfully one-sided in recent years. But now Pakistan have broken that duck, and they’ve done it brilliantly.
This wasn’t just a win over an arch-rival in a big tournament, it’s also a win that signals that they’re contenders for the title. It helped them that they won the toss and chased, but to do it in the manner they have has been quite stunning.
Virat Kohli led from the front to take Team India to a total of 151/7. The Indian skipper scored 57 runs off 49 balls after Pakistan pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi dismissed Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul. Surya Kumar Yadav looked lively but was soon dismissed by Hasan Ali, reducing India to 31/3. Kohli and Rishabh Pant added 53 runs for the fourth wicket, before the latter was dismissed on 39 (30) by Shadab Khan.
Ravindra Jadeja then joined Kohli in the middle, with the pair stitching together 41 runs for the next wicket. Jadeja and Kohli were eventually dismissed by Hasan Ali and Afridi, respectively.
Hardik Pandya (11) gathered some much-needed runs to take India past the 150-run mark. For Pakistan, Shaheen Shah Afridi was the pick of the bowlers as he returned with figures of 3/31.
Apart from him, Hasan Ali bagged a couple of scalps while Haris Rauf and Shadab Khan took a wicket each. Meanwhile, Mohammad Hafeez and Imad Wasim went wicketless for the Green Army.
Earlier, Pakistan skipper Babar Azam won the toss and opted to bowl against India at the Dubai International Stadium. Team India had won both of their warm-up games prior to the campaign, against England and Australia, respectively.
Pakistan, on the other hand, won their first warm-up game with ease, thrashing the West Indies. However, they were brought back to earth by a spirited South African team in the second warm-up game.
