Highly anticipated India-Pakistan clash tells one-sided story

Despite having the anticipation of high competition, the India-Pakistan game showed a one-sided story as India sealed a massive victory of 228 runs in the Super Four of the Asia Cup.

Pakistan bowled out on 128 in replying to a gigantic total of 356 runs at R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo on Monday.

No Pakistan batsman could able to extend their innings standing before the Indian bowlers. From the very beginning of the innings, Indian bowlers started creating pressure on them, and as a result, Pakistan kept losing wickets in regular intervals.

Fakhar Zaman, started the innings slowly, finally dismissed on his individual 27 off 50 and skipper Babar Azam went for 10. Imam-ul-Haq and Mohammad Rizwan could not able to reach the two digit as they scored 9 and 2 runs respectively.

Later, Agha Salman and Iftikhar Ahmed added 23 runs each but did not enough to reply to the big total posted by India.

Kuldeep Yadav was the pick of the bowlers from India as he sent five Pakistani batsmen to the pavilion. Jusprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya and Shardul Thakur got one wicket each.

Earlier, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul hit wonderful hundreds as India set a massive target of 357 runs before Pakistan. Both batsmen remain unbeaten toward the end and made a 233-run partnership in the third wicket with Kohli playing a quickfire 122 off 94 and Rahul 111 off 106 to help the team post a huge total of 356 runs on the board.

Kohli and Rahul were calculated in the beginning, but then attacked the part-timers, taking their chances perfectly. It was an incredible return to ODI cricket for Rahul, who was back to his classy best with some neat flicks and drives to score another century. Virat Kohli at the other end showed a masterclass in running between the wickets, kept busy, and ended up scoring at a strike rate of nearly 130. He completed his 13,000 ODI runs during his innings.

The game resumed on the reserve day (Monday) delaying more than one and a half hours due to rain in Colombo. It started at 5:10 pm Bangladesh time for the wet outfield at R Premadasa Stadium despite being scheduled to begin at 3:30 pm.

India came from 147/2 in 24.1 overs where the match was called off due to rain on Sunday. Virat Kohli and KL Rahul were unbeaten on 8 and 17 respectively.

Being asked to bat first, India got a flying start on Sunday on the basis of the opening pair between skipper Rohit Sharma and his fellow Shubman Gill, collecting 121 runs.

Rohit hit a 56-run knock from 49 balls before being sent back to the pavilion by Shadab Khan. Gill departed from the very next over of Shaheen Afridi on his 58 off 52.

Only Shadab and Shaheen were successful bowlers from Pakistan as both of them got one wicket in the match.

Pakistan went against India with the same XI that was against Bangladesh in their first match. On the other hand, there were two changes in the Indian camp. Lokesh Rahul played in place of Shreyas Iyer and Jasprit Bumrah came in place of Mohammad Shami.

India Playing XI: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Lokesh Rahul, Ishan Kishan (wk), Hardik Pandya (vc), Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Jasprit Bumrah

Pakistan Playing XI: Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Babar Azam (c), Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Agha Salman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Faheem Ashraf, Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf.