India and Pakistan share points as rain spoils play
Shaheen Shah Afridi claimed four scalps, and Virat Kohli was one of them - AFP
With all that hype of a war minus the shooting, rain played spoilsport as the Asia Cup match between India and Pakistan was called off at Pallekele International Cricket Stadium on Saturday. Thus Pakistan booked their place in the Super Four stage of the Asia Cup, with three points to their credit.
Pakistan collected two points after beating Nepal by 238 runs on Wednesday and they earned another one point as yesterday’s match was called off.
India batted first and were dismissed for 266 but the Pakistani batters could not bat a single delivery due to constant drizzling, which continued until 9.50p.m. The match referee, Javagal Srinath and the two umpires decided to call off the match after consulting the ground authorities. At the time they made the crucial call, the entire ground was covered.
The cut off time for the match was 10.27p.m. Since it needed almost an hour to remove all the covers and get the field ready for play, the match officials took a timely decision to call off the game. Within minutes of their decision, yet another light shower came down.
From the very first over of the match, it was brilliant bowling from Pakistan, who was put into bowl by India after winning the toss.
Arguably the best batting combination in the world, India was struggling at 66 for 4 within 15 overs. From that precarious position, Ishan Kishan (82) and Hardik Pandya (87) took India on their shoulders to help India put up a challenging 266. The pair put on an invaluable stand that dragged India out of trouble and it was not an easy task to chase under the lights and the cool atmosphere, here in Pallekele.
The 138-run partnership for the fifth wicket was broken by expressman, Haris Rauf, but Pandya carried on the fight with another 35-run stand with Ravindra Jadeja. Before Pandya departed as the fifth wicket at 239, India had seven overs to negotiate. Shaheen Shah Afridi, who had claimed two early wickets, returned to grab two more wickets in six balls to block India from marching towards 300 runs.
Kishan, playing in his very first match against Pakistan, looked a blueprint of former Indian star Suresh Raina. Kishan cut, drove and pulled with ease, to score 82 off 81 balls with nine fours and two sixes. Pandya was his usual self, with power packed drives and pulls. His 90-ball knock comprised seven fours and a six.
Left-arm paceman Afridi gave the best possible start to Pakistan by sending Rohith Sharma (11) and Virat Kohli (4) back to the pavilion inside four balls. He fed three consecutive deliveries outside the off stump, which went away from the batsman, and the next was a sharp in-swinger to the middle stump of the Indian skipper. In the third ball of his following over Kohli played on to his stumps leaving Indian fans stunned. Afridi’s deadly first spell read as 5-2-15-2.
Batting power play was a nightmare to India as they managed only 48 for 3 in the first 10 overs. Rain disruptions too hampered the momentum. Each time the Indians tried to gain momentum, a drizzle came down and disrupted play.
Pakistan claimed all 10 wickets with their three pacies, despite using three spinners. The three pacemen — Shaheen Shah Afridi, Nasim Shah and Haris Rauf — were virtually unplayable as they claimed all 10 wickets for 129 runs. In contrast, the spinners gave away 133 runs without claiming a single wicket.
Pakistan fielding was below par for an international side. Their poor fielding cost them for nearly 45 runs. Sharma flicked Afridi to the square leg boundary as the ball few like a tracer bullet, kissing Fakhar Zaman’s fingers at square leg, but the Zaman held on to a brilliant one at mid-wicket to send Shreyas Iyer back to the pavilion. That was all what Pakistan fielders could boast of.
Sharma won the toss and elected to bat without a hesitation as he was looking for hat-trick of wins against Pakistan, as captain.
India and Pakistan have played only four ODIs during the last six years and Sharma led them to consecutive victories in the 2018 Asia Cup held in the United Arab Emirates. Even in the 2019 World Cup, Kohli’s men in blue defeated Pakistan by 89 runs to register the third consecutive win against their arch rivals.
| SCORECARD | |
| India Rohit Sharma b Afridi 11 Shubman Gill b Rauf 10 Virat Kohli b Afridi 04 Shreyas Iyer c Zaman b Rauf 14 Ishan Kishan c Azam b Rauf 82 Hardik Pandya c Salman b Afridi 87 Ravindra Jadeja c Rizwan b Afridi 14 Shardul Thakur c Khan b Shah 03 Kuldeep Yadav c Rizwan b Shah 04 Jasprit Bumrah c Salman b Shah 16 Mohammed Siraj not out 01 Extras (b2, lb2, w15) 20 Total (all out in 48.5 overs) 266 Fall-of-wickets: 1-15 (Sharma, 4.6ov), 2-27 (Kohli, 6.3ov), 3-48 (Iyer, 9.5ov), 4-66 (Gill, 14.1ov), 5-204 (Kishan, 37.3ov), 6-239 (Pandya 43.1ov), 7-242 (Jadeja 43.6ov), 8-242 (Thakur 44.1ov), 9-261 (Yadav, 48.2ov), 10-266 (Bumrah, 48.5ov) Bowling: Shaheen Shah Afridi 10-2-35-4, Naseem Shah 8.5-0-36-3, Haris Rauf 9-0-58-3, Shadab Khan 9-0-57-0, Mohammad Nawaz 8-0-55-0, Agha Salman 4-0-21-0 Pakistan Team: Imam-ul-Haq, Fakhar Zaman, Babar Azam (C), Mohammad Rizwan, Agha Salman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf |