At a ground where the team’s batting second won maximum of the games, Pakistan won the toss and asked India to bat first in Manchester in the world cup clash on Sunday. Indian opening pair of KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma put up a 136 run stand for the first wicket to set it up nicely for India. Rohit went onto notch a match turning innings of 140 runs well supported by Virat Kohli who played a blistering innings of 77 runs to help India finish at 336/5 after the end of 50 overs, despite losing wickets in the death overs.
Defending a mammoth target of 337 runs, India lost Bhuvneshwar Kumar early as he was ruled out of the game after just bowling 2.4 overs in the innings. The rain spoil the play in the 47th over of the first innings after which the outfield and the bowling crease became squashy.
In the fifth over of the innings, Bhuvneshwar Kumar pulled his hamstring after landing on the wet bowling crease. He later walked off the ground which turned out to be a big blow for the Indian team. Later it was revealed that he won’t take the field.
Virat Kohli gives an update
In the post match presentation, Indian captain talked to Sanjay Manjrekar and revealed that Bhuvneshwar may be out of action for 2-3 games. “Slight niggle for Bhuvi, he slipped on one of the footmarks. He’s out for two, maybe three games, but he should come back for us at some stage during this tournament. He is very important for us,” Kohli said.
The Indian captain further added that Bengal pacer Mohammed Shami is raring to go and he will replace Bhuvneshwar in the team. India will play their next three games against Afghanistan on 22nd June followed by games against West Indies on 27th June and England on 30th June.
India registers a win
Chasing a mammoth target of 377 runs, it was not going to be an easy job for Pakistan as their highest chase in world cup has been 270 runs and turning the history tables is a big task to conquer. The key to the chase was the opening pair of Fakhar Zaman(62 off 75 balls) and Imam-ul-Haq(7 off 18 balls) but the latter batsman got out early that put all the pressure on Pakistan.
Babar Azam(48 off 57 balls) and Fakhar Zaman put up a 104 run stand for the second wicket that brought the hopes back in the Pakistani camp. After the departure of Babar Azam, the men in green were blown away like a pack of cards as they lost Fakhar Zaman, Mohammad Hafeez(9 off 7 balls), Shoaib Malik(0 off 1 balls) and were struggling at 129/5.
After losing a cluster of wickets it was all India from there. Rain spoiled the play yet again and duckworth lewis stern method came into play with Pakistan needing 136 runs from 30 balls. All-rounders Imad Wasim(46 off 39 balls) and Shadab Khan(20 off 14 balls) put up a 47 run stand but it was not enough to win the game for Pakistan and break the world cup jinx of never winning against India. The men in green lost the game by 89 runs courtesy DLS method and they now have to win all their remaining encounters to stand any chance of qualifying in the semi-finals.
Vijay Shankar, Kuldeep Yadav and Hardik Pandya picked two wickets each.
