India vs Pakistan — Quick flicks of the day

Two of India’s favourite finishers saw them home

The match between the arch-rivals did not disappoint. On a Sunday that had two big matches lined up for the cricket audiences, the maniacs showed us again what value an Indo-Pak contest still holds.

India’s victory takes it a step nearer to the semi-finals, while Pakistan will have to find inspiration to force a comeback in their next match.

Two jinxes, one remains

Before this match the record books said, India had never won a super-eight match after the inaugural 2007 World Cup’s victory. It also said that Pakistan has never beaten India in any World Cup match in any version of the game. After India’s victory here at least one of the jinxes has been broken.

Smiling assassin’s favourite victim

The decision to play Balaji instead of Harbhajan might have been hasty, even inept. But it paid off for Dhoni.

Balaji loves playing against the nation where he had earned an admirable moniker. Against the same team today, he justified his selection by picking up three wickets with fine mix of medium pace bowling.

The Singhing question has been answered

Questions were raised over Yuvraj’s fitness; many cricket experts like Sanjay Manjrekar and Ravi Shastri went on-air expressing their displeasure at India’s rather ‘sentimental’ decision to play the star all-rounder. Yuvraj looked determined to prove his point from the very beginning. He began warming up with a fine dive to save the first legitimate delivery of the match from going to the boundary. Later, Yuvi returned with two wickets and successful run-out. He also, along with Virat Kohli, was one of the last men standing to see the team home.

It wasn’t Kamran Akmal

Some famous cricket jokes in Pakistan are: “Behind every successful batsman there is Kamran Akmal”, “Why did Kamran Akmal have to walk back to the team hotel after the match? Because he failed to catch the bus!”

But today it was the other Akmal, Umar, considered to be a fine fielder, who hurt Pakistan’s chances heavily when he failed to hold on to a thick edge off Virat Kohli’s bat. India were then on 70/1 and Kohli was batting on 42. The bowler Yasir Arafat had almost believed he had gotten the wicket, before reality struck.

Look who’s Kohling!

Virat Kohli has established his reputation as India’s most dependable batsman in limited overs cricket. He did his reputation no harm after another match-winning display here in this game. There was symbolism and there were metaphors involved, not that we need to care about them. But two of his shots that stood out were his sixes off Afridi and Ajmal. The one he hit off Afridi went over the long-off as Kohli went charging down the track against an attempted googly. Overs later, he lifted currently world’s best spinner, Saeed Ajmal, flat out of the park.