It was electrifying at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo on Sunday. While it was more charged up at the television venues back in our country where the game becomes the anthem for on and all. From the first ball to the end, the India vs Pakistan match was nail biting and the finish was a triumph by the Indian team, just short of a couple of balls to beat the net average against the Pakistan team. The victory hence translated into a win-win situation for both the teams. Anyways, the Ind vs Pak encounter was the for the first time in this ongoing T20 World Cup 2012 at Sri Lanka. At the Super Eight level this was the second match for Ind and has one more with South Africa.
Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat, but to the dismay of the fans of the other side the team just managed to scramble to make 128 runs while batting first. Shoab Malik and Umar Akmal managed decent scores with 28 and 21 runs. But the winner was Yuvraj Singh, he did phenomenal fielding and grabbed two wickets. He was also instrumental in the run out of Yasir Arafat. Along with him Ravichandran Ashwin bagged 2 wickets while the pace-man L Balaji claimed three.
In the followup the Indians embarked on a clinical style with opener Virender Sehwag back in action. The Pak hopes raised as Gautam Gambhir returned in the second ball of the Indian innings with a zero. But then Virat Kohli and Sehwag took the mantle and moved forward. Sehwag was out after scoring 29 runs while Kohli was unbeaten 78 runs. The last man in was Yuvvy who made 19 runs. In seventeen overs the Ind team finished the score to post the victory. Kohli grabbed the Man of the Match honors.
However the team was expected to perform better and reach the target before 16.3 overs to post a better Net Run Rate (NRR) than Pakistan, who are currently at -0.43, while Ind is at -0.45. now if India has to reach the semis they have to win against the South Africa and Australia must beat Pakistan. Otherwise the NRR of India must be higher than Pak after the next set of encounters. Keeping our fingers crossed at the moment is all that we can do at the moment.
But one thing Ind, could be proud of is that this is the eighth encounter between the two rival nations. And Ind had beaten Pak 8-0. so October 02, the birthday of the father of our nation will be deciding the fate of the Ind Team in Colombo. (With inputs from internet-AW AarKay)
