Pakistan bury India jinx with 10-wicket win
Of 12 losses to rivals over 29 years halted in stunning style paves way for Babar and Rizwan’s 152-run stand
hrun hshaheen
It was 13th time lucky for Pakistan – except there was nothing lucky about it. After a run of 12 defeats by India, Pakistan finally defeated their greatest rivals in the T20 World Cup. Millions had been dreaming of this moment for years. Yet they could scarcely imagine that it would come like this – a 10-wicket victory with 13 balls to spare. Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan shared a chanceless stand of 152 after Shaheen Shah Afridi had established Pakistan’s dominance with a mesmerising new-ball spell.
In its way, it was almost as crushing as the defeat meted out between two other great sporting rivals at Old Trafford. Just like there, a large chunk of the supporters left long before the match was over, as about two-thirds of the 16,000 in Dubai were supporting India. The salient difference was that, in Dubai, the defeated side were not particularly bad; it was just that Pakistan played as if powered by an elemental force.
Even the most partisan among the disappointed Indian supporters would have to acknowledge that this was a defeat authored by a spell of scintillating sport. After Pakistan won the toss, Babar promptly handed the new ball to Shaheen, his towering left-arm quick bowler. As he stood by the edge of the 30-yard circle, and then took a couple of steps in before beginning his runup, Shaheen was about to bend the ball, and the game, to his will.
His fourth ball was very fast and very full. It curved late and so rapidly that Rohit Sharma, facing his first ball, was momentarily paralysed. The ball thudded into Rohit’s back pad, leaving him plumb lbw.
Having dismissed one of India’s champion openers, Shaheen now eyed up the other. His approach, over the wicket, swinging the ball into the stumps, was the same. Only this time the results were even more spectacular: a delivery on a good length jagged back to find a gap between KL Rahul’s bat and pads.
That is the allure of fast bowling: a power that, in hands like these, can overcome any opponent and any conditions. Pakistan have always had a penchant for producing fast-bowling phenomenons.
Shaheen, 21, already seems a worthy successor to the dynasty of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Imran Khan, Shoaib Akhtar and Fazal Mahmood. There is an Indian Premier League auction in a few months’ time; were Pakistan players not barred from entering, Shaheen would become a millionaire overnight. In their warm-up matches, Pakistan had entrusted left-arm spinner Imad Wasim with the opening over. But the extra swing that
bowlers extract in the first over – more than any other in a T20 innings – combined with Shaheen’s far superior record bowling the first rather than second, helped convince Pakistan to hand him the new ball. Babar will now surely consider it folly to ever begin the innings without Shaheen.
At six for two in the third over, India were rocked, though with their batting clout it need not have
been terminal. But Pakistan’s supporting cast ensured that Shaheen’s early brilliance was not wasted. Shadab Khan’s mid-innings spell of 1-22 from four overs, which included snaring Rishabh Pant with a googly, prevented India from finding the acceleration they needed.
Virat Kohli, who needed to summon all his skill to withstand Shaheen’s three-over burst with the new ball, made 57, but was never able to score as freely as Babar and Rizwan would in Pakistan’s reply. As well as their own pristine timing and silky placement, they benefited from dew, which inhibited India’s spinners. And so Pakistan’s bewildering 29-year wait to beat India in the World Cup – a sequence taking in seven meetings in ODI World Cups, and five in T20 World Cups – is finally at an end.
The record has been one of the most curious in sport: in overall head-to-head games, Pakistan have won more than India. After a tumultuous few weeks for Pakistan cricket, it was a cathartic triumph. As their jubilant players huddled together, they had restored hope to Pakistani cricket, just as fears have resurfaced that they will once again have to play their home cricket in exile. Circumstances have led Dubai to emerge as Pakistan’s main alternative home – so it was fitting, perhaps, that it now played host to such a moment of treasured history.
It ended a captivating first weekend. Two days into the Super 12 stage, and the defending champions and favourites have both lost.