 "India beat Pakistan by 6 runs in a low-scoring contest in Group A of the T20 World Cup. AP")
Long before the scheduled 10.30 am start of play on Sunday, Eisenhower Park was draped in an ocean of blue. The India Blue, the predominant theme at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium. There was a gentle smattering of the Pakistani Green, but it was only gentle, it was only a smattering. An overwhelming percentage of the 34,028 fans were decidedly plumping for Rohit Sharma’s men, exposing the United States to what cricket fanaticism is all about.
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For a while, the elements threatened to spoil the party . Sunday had dawned bleak and gloomy, a blanket of dark, angry clouds waiting to rain down on the cricketing parade. A little before the 10.00 toss, the rain did arrive, forcing the players off the park and sending the ground staff scurrying to bring on the covers. How was the drainage at the ground? Would the sandy outfield hold up? Oh, the tension, the drama!
The toss did take place at 10.50 am, play began at 11.20 am but only for one over. The rain returned with greater ferocity, perhaps triggered by Rohit Sharma’s first-over six off Shaheen Shah Afridi. Bring out the covers. Unfold the umbrellas. Seek safe haven. And pray. Pray that the rain stops, pray that the action begins.
Those prayers weren’t long in finding answers. By noon, the ground was ready to welcome the players back, the outfield none the worse for the rain, the pitch unaffected by the precipitation. Unaffected, you say? Yes, unaffected, though it was neither true nor predictable.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThe fans didn’t seem to care much about such mundane issues. They wanted a match, now they would get a match. A full match, 20 overs a side. Uninterrupted too, as it turned out.
This was a classic, as low-scoring contests tend to be. There is no little fun in watching a total of 200 being hunted down with relentlessness, but there is greater joy in a team putting everything on the line to defend 119. There must be desperation, but no panic; there must be the quest for wickets, but no overreach that could catalyse a spate of boundaries. The margin for error with the ball was small to non-existent; one loose, weak link, and it was curtains.
How would India acquit themselves? There must have been a deep sense of disappointment in the dugout at the halfway stage. Handily placed at 81 for three after ten, India managed just 38 in the next nine as they were bowled out with six deliveries unutilised. Even accounting for the not insignificant lateral movement Pakistan’s wonderful pace battery extracted, 119 was below par. Not massively so, but sub-par nevertheless. 140 would have been safe, comprehensively so. 119? Hmmm…
The first half had been about Rishabh Pant, relishing his presence at No. 3, doing Pant things – such as walking across his stumps and whipping the pacy Haris Rauf to fine-leg without a care in the world, the trademark tumble in the end earning him the moniker ‘The new Rohan Kanhai,’ him of the falling sweep fame. Pant’s 42 was by a distance India’s highest contribution; eight of the other ten batters didn’t touch double-digits. Despite the conditions, it wasn’t a great look.
It was now up to the bowlers. Having taken fearful poundings at the IPL, on shirtfronts that must have broken backs and spirits, they were tasked with returning the side into the contest. They needed their undisputed leader to front up, and boy, did he!
Like Virat Kohli, who suffered a rare World Cup failure against Pakistan , Jasprit Bumrah loves locking horns with the old foe. Last October in Ahmedabad, he had taken two for 19 in seven overs to send Pakistan crashing from 155 for two to 191 all out, batting first. This time, his brief was different; wickets if you can, but control. Dot balls. Pressure. Choke. Stranglehold.
Bumrah rose to the occasion like only he can. He needed, and got, help from those around him – Mohammed Siraj. Arshdeep Singh. Hardik Pandya. Axar Patel, who bowled an outstanding 16th over that yielded just two. He couldn’t have done it all on his own, though to be fair to him, Bumrah almost did that. Three for 14 from 24 deliveries, among them the scalps of skipper Babar Azam, first wicket to fall, and Mohammad Rizwan, who made an industrious 31 but threw it away in the face of mounting pressure and a climbing required rate.
Babar and Rizwan had orchestrated Pakistan’s only T20 World Cup win against India, in Dubai in October 2021, taking their side to a ten-wicket drubbing by putting on 152. Not today, not on my watch, was Bumrah’s loud unspoken pronouncement. The Blue erupted with each dot ball, taking an entirely different hue when a wicket fell. It drove the team onwards and upwards, the unofficial 12th man. As if Pakistan didn’t find the 11 in the field more than a handful.
Another India-Pakistan World Cup match, another tick in the Blue column. Let the festivities begin.