Triumph at Eden

The marque clash at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata, on Saturday was no less than a blockbuster movie. The stage was set and the script worked out to perfection for team India. 

India had maintained a hundred per cent record against Pakistan in all ICC tournaments but the Eden Gardens statistics heavily favoured Pakistan. However, history was re-written this time and India won the match on the back of a disciplined bowling attack and a solid performance from the start batsman of the Indian team-Virat Kohli. Much has been spoken and written about how the performance if Virat Kohli hence, I will only maintain one line-He is in a league of his own.

Having won the toss, India decided to field first because it had been raining heavily in Kolkata since morning and how the pitch will play was a tricky call (credit is due for the ground staff who made the ground ready in time for the play to start). The match was reduced to 18 overs and India opened it bowling with Nehra. The ball was turning like a top and Ashwin bowled three overs within the power play itself signifying the crucial role of the spinners in the game. Sharjeel miscued the Raina delivery and Pandya took a stunning catch to get rid of the opener with the score board standing at Pakistan 38/1. Shahid Afridi again promoted himself up the order and came into bat next with the Pakistani fans hoping he will weave the same magic as he did in the previous fame against Bangladesh. However, none of the Pakistani batsmen could convert their start into big scores. In the end, the Pakistani team folded for 118/5 in their quota of 18 overs and now all eyes were on the Indian batsman and their approach to the game.

Amir commenced the proceedings for the Pakistani team and conceded only four runs in the first over. Both the openers were setting themselves up for the big game and squeezing runs as both Amir and Irfan were bowling in tandem with much discipline. The first blow came in for India when Rohit Sharma fell for 10 runs and the score stood for 10/1. Muhammad Sami was the first change bowler and it was important that he sustained pressure in the middle overs after some good bowling by Amir and Irfan. Sami struck gold and removed Dhawan and Yuvraj in successive deliveries bringing Yuvraj on the field. He was riding on a hat-trick but Yuvraj sustained the hat-trick delivery. In order to continue mounting the pressure and rattle the nerves of Yuvraj and Kohli, skipper Afridi bought himself into the attack so that he could exploit the conditions, which was assisting the slow bowlers. India were playing too may dot balls and the pressure was mounting with run rate increasing with each passing ball. However, neither Yuvraj nor Kohli were in a mood to go down without a fight and soon started targeting the bowlers. Fifty was up for India in the ninth over; with India needing another 69 from 57 balls now. Both the batsmen were set and gearing for a big one with the gap between balls and runs narrowing with every passing over. However, India lost Yuvraj at the score of 84 and now the equation stood 37 off only 25. It seemed that Pakistan skipped a trick of playing one less spinner but then since, the pitch was under the cover throughout nobody really knew how it will play out. The next batsman to come in was MS Dhoni and Kohli on the other end was batting beautifully and reached his fifty soon. Celebrating this milestone he bowed down to towards the stand where Sachin was seated and dedicated his innings to him. It seemed that both Kohli and Dhoni were in a hurry to finish their job at hand. Dhoni inched a step closer with his winning six and then finally scored the winning runs for India. India beat Pakistan by six wickets at the Eden Gardens and kept their hopes alive of progressing ahead in the tournament and booking their spot in the semi-finals.

In a low-scoring encounter Kohli stood as an anchor and guided India to a win.

Virat Kohli took India home with its unbeaten knock of 55 runs against Pakistan on Saturday

Now the eyes are set on the next target where India will play Bangladesh in Bengaluru and have to win by a big margin to not only improve their net run rate but also in order to progress in the tournament since, the contest is wide open.