Down the Memory Lane: India's bowl-out win over Pakistan in the 2007 ICC World T20
India vs Pakistan is always a high voltage match full of emotions, drama and most importantly some scintillating cricket and when it comes to the World Cup, India might have won all their encounters, but they were never easy.
The date was 14 September 2007 and India was about to take on Pakistan for the very first time in the T20 format in a Group stage encounter with both teams eyeing to finish on top of the group. Pakistan, on one hand, had already thrashed Scotland by 51 runs in their first group game whereas India, on the other, had their first match against Scotland washed out.
In this post, I will take you all down the memory lane as to how one of the most exciting India-Pakistan encounters unfolded.
How the match unfolded
Toss: Pakistan won the toss and Shoaib Malik, the captain of Pakistan, elected to field first.
Indian top-order struggled
The decision paid immediate dividends as Mohammad Asif sent Gautam Gambhir packing in the very first over with a brilliant catch of his own bowling. India hadn't even recovered from the first blow and Asif in his second and inning's third over gave India an even bigger blow in the form of destructive Virender Sehwag.
With Robin Uthappa and Yuvraj Singh on the crease, India would have hoped for the duo to stitch together a partnership to get the innings back on track. However, the duo could only manage 10 runs before Yuvraj Singh was also caught by Malik off the bowling of Asif, who was breathing out that day. The scoreboard at that time read 19/3 in 4.1 overs.
In came Dinesh Karthik, as he started off on a positive note by hitting Asif for two boundaries in that over. But then, Shoaib Malik played a masterstroke by giving Asif 4th consecutive over rather than holding him back and Asif justified his captain's decision by getting rid of DK too and he finished with the figures of 4-0-18-4.
In between all the mayhem caused by Asif, Umar Gul had bowled three quiet overs, giving away only 17 runs. India was in a complete mess and ghosts of early exist in the 50-over World Cup came back to haunt them.
In came MS Dhoni, the young captain, under immense pressure and joined Uthappa, who had scored 19 runs off 24 deliveries by then. Both the batsmen looked to consolidate the innings as they made 11 runs off the next two overs. The score at the end of nine overs was 47/4.