Down, out and virtually nailed into the coffin, the bravehearts in blue rose from the ashes as India’s entry into Super-8s looks well assured.Lehra do played in full blast as the quaint corner of Long Island turned into a stadium of light.
The toss went against India, a spectacular collapse led to them being dismissed for 119, and when Pakistan score read 80-4 in the 15th over, the game looked all but gone.
But that’s when India’s greatest white-ball matchwinner of all time showed his magic. Jasprit Bumrah pitched the ball in the right area and Mohammed Rizwan, who had battled on to 31 till then, played a poor shot to get bowled. The celebration told the story, the Indian bowlers knew they were back in the game.
Everyone chipped in after that, with Axar giving two off the 16th and Hardik Pandya removing Shadab Khan off a short ball in the 17th, as the Pakistan wheels started coming off spectacularly.
It all boiled down to the 19th over with Pakistan needing 21 and Bumrah back in action. The champion chose to bowl back of the length as Ifthikar Ahmed and Imad Wasim just couldn’t get it going. And when Ifthikar departed in the last ball of Bumrah’s spell, a blue wave engulfed the stadium.
Eighteen off the last over was way beyond Pakistan’s reach as Arshdeep, who had scored a vital few runs with the bat as well, did just enough to take India home.
Earlier, with the score reading 89-3 in the 12th over, the game looked fairly under control. Rishabh Pant (42 off 31 balls), in two gutsy partnerships with Axar Patel and Suryakumar Yadav, seemed to have weathered the early storm.
But with the sun coming out and the pitch drying out just a bit, the two-paced nature of the track was slowly coming to the fore. And it was this slight advantage that the Pakistan bowlers utilized brilliantly.
Haris Rauf, who had looked immensely ordinary till then, removed Surya, the batter failing to connect his bread-and-butter inside-out shot over mid-off, the pitch playing its part.
It sparked off a collapse where India lost seven for 28, a kind of a batting debacle that the Indian fans haven’t witnessed in a while.
Shivam Dube is woefully out of form since his inclusion in the Indian team for the T20 World Cup and he looked a fish out of water on a difficult track, lobbing a simple return catch to Naseem Shah.
But the key moment of the game belonged to a man whose comeback has been nothing short of a fairytale.
Mohammed Amir has gone through a lot, but his desire to play never left him. He has fought back to the squad, bowled a poor Super Over against United States, but on the big day against India, he was quite brilliant in his second spell.
Looking to take the ball away from the left-hander, Amir induced a false shot off Pant that brought the downfall of the gutsy Delhi boy. Amir followed it up with Ravindra Jadeja’s wicket in the very next delivery, the ball stopping again, as the southpaw just lobbed it into the hands of a cover fielder.
The damage had truly been done and the Pakistan pacers did enough to keep to 119, which was 30 below-par on this pitch.
But it didn’t matter in the end.