India just wholly possess Pakistan again tonight at Premadasa in Colombo! What a one-sided scourge: India affix 175/7, then bowled Pakistan out for 114 in 18 overs to win by 61 runs. In T20Is now 8-1 for the Men in Blue—feels like they just keep writing the selfsame script every time these two converge!
Pakistan won the toss and put us in to bat—sticking pitch would helped their spinners later. Ishan Kishan, went berserk—77 off just 40 balls, 10 fours, 3 sixes, pure fire from the first ball. Abhishek Sharma went for a duck so early, but Kishan and Tilak Varma (who made a solid 25 off 24) put on this blazing 87-run stand where Kishan was smashing the entirety. SKY captained calmly with 32 off 27, Shivam Dube blasted a quick 27 off 17 at the end—total looked very defendable on that tricky track. Saim Ayub was the pick for Pakistan with 3 wickets (including Kishan), kept a lid on the death overs.
Chase time, and oh man, it fell apart fast! Hardik Pandya bang in the squeeze—Sahibzada Farhan out for a golden duck! Then Bumrah did Bumrah things: swab up Saim Ayub and Salman Agha in the same over. Babar Azam couldn’t get going (just a low score), middle order crumbled completely. Usman Khan fought a bit (44 or so, top effort), but wickets kept tumbling—106/9 at one point around the 17th. Shaheen Afridi swung a late 23 as top scorer, but Hardik came back to finish it. Bumrah, Hardik, Axar Patel, Varun Chakravarthy snatched 2 wickets each. Bowling was patch on the sundry, disciplined, mortal on that turning the pitch.
India lock in their Super 8 spot as one of the first qualifiers—campaign is flying high! Pakistan? Tough night, pressure got to them big time. No coming back from that collapse.
Sources :
ESPNcricinfo
The Indian Express
Sportstar
The Hindu
Hindustan Times
Times of India
NDTV Sports
