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League matches

Pakistan beat India

Partha Bhaduri, Oct 25, 2021: The Times of India

And so the inevitable comes to pass. India’s dream run in World Cups against Pakistan, stretching all the way back to 1992, had to end eventually, but what was perhaps unexpected, and will rankle, is the manner of the defeat. It was a capitulation which brought back the ghosts of decades past and will haunt for a while.

Babar Azam’s Pakistan finally chose Sunday night in Dubai for the kind of assured, authoritative performance that can thoroughly deflate an opposition and has eluded Pakistan for decades.

The 10-wicket win, Pakistan’s first in this format and their first victory against India in World Cup in 13 attempts, was engineered with such consummate ease, driven to fruition with such complete mastery, that it has lifted the curtain on a new era in this storied rivalry.

From being masters of the chaotic for decades, Pakistan turned to masters of the clinical in one night.

Azam’s measured masterclass (68 not out off 52 balls; 6x4, 6x2), an exhibition of touch and class, and Mohammed Rizwan’s sparkling, animated 79 not out (55b; 6x4, 3x6) in a pressure chase on a slowish pitch was everything mercurial, chaotic, temperamental Pakistan have not been in World Cup over the years: calm, clever and resolute.

No perfect Pakistan outing, however, is complete without a bit of pace magic. In this game it was the fiery Man of the Match Shaheen Shah Afridi (3/31, accounting for India’s top three) who imposed his presence as soon as the game began and allowed Pakistan to gain the early chokehold. Pakistan simply never let go.

Finding swing with the new ball, Afridi came up with a lethal three-over burst first up (3-0-19-2) that got rid of the openers and sowed the seeds of doubt, perhaps a bit of fear, in India’s mind.

On the same pitch on which West Indies had crumbled for 55 a day before, Afridi, running in after Babar Azam had won the toss and naturally opted to field on a pitch more amenable to batting second, got Rohit Sharma for a first-ball duck with an old bugbear: a full, inswinging delivery at pace.

Sharma’s struggles against this delivery have been well-documented but this was nearly unplayable: searing yorker length, curving in late. Rohit reacted in panic, playing across, trying to guide it through the leg side and being caught plumb in front.

The first ball of the second over, Afridi, now on fire, took KL Rahul out of the equation with a 140-plus monster: this time it was a length ball, again swinging in, and again the batman played across the line. Rahul looked disoriented for just that half-second to allow the ball to clip off the bails. Captain Kohli (57 off 49b; 5x4, 1x6), was, like Azam, the fulcrum as India fought valiantly past the early blows to recover to 151/7 in their 20 overs.

Suryakumar looked in good nick the short while he lasted but Hasan Ali got him with an away-going one to set the stage for Rishabh Pant to light up the proceedings, again briefly.

Kohli had earlier cut through the pressure by either creeping down the pitch to counter the late movement from Shaheen, or, like on one occasion, by staying back and hitting the bowler for a rare, authoritative six. It was Pant, though, who was shaping up to be the biggest threat for Pakistan, hitting the wayward Hasan Ali for two audacious, consecutive, freaky one-handed sixes that jolted India out of a middle-over slump.

But Pant played one shot too many and fell to a wrong one from the canny leggie Shadab Khan (4-0-22-1) in the 13th over.

India beat Namibia

K ShriniwasRao, Nov 9, 2021: The Times of India

Only if India’s World Cup scheduling had been done the other way – starting with Namibia, Scotland and Afghanistan, and then followed by New Zealand and Pakistan. It’s one among the many thoughts that the Indian team will find themselves overburdened with as they now get ready to take the flight from UAE back home.

On the road since August 2020, when they first travelled to UAE for the IPL in 2020, followed by the tour of Australia for a four Test series, four Tests against England at home, the first-leg of IPL, the World Test Championship final in June, the four Test matches on the tour of England, the second-leg of the IPL and eventually the T20 World Cup – it’s been a long and arduous 15 months for a majority of top India cricketers.

As coach Ravi Shastri mentioned after the match against Namibia on Monday, for the amount of time this team had ended up staying in a bio-secure bubble over the last year-and-a-half, the ‘bubble had to burst’ at some time.

Compare that to New Zealand who played the WTC final against India. Between December 2020 and June 2021, Kane Williamson’s team played just six Tests, four of those at home.

Compare that to Pakistan, who don’t participate in the IPL and saw their home series against New Zealand and England getting cancelled for reasons that are still being debated.

It’ll be top on the minds of cricketers who’ll be ruing another missed shot at an ICC trophy, especially considering that India were the hosts of this tournament.

On Monday evening, like they had trampled Afghanistan and Scotland last week, India came down heavily on Namibia too, winning the one-sided encounter by nine wickets. It was the third time in three matches – all backto-back that either the Indian batsmen or the bowlers finished matches even before the opposition settled into the game. Rohit Sharma, the new captain waiting to replace Virat Kohli immediately now – TOI had first reported this on September 13 – was in top form, leading the way for his team.

But all of this has happened too late after New Zealand had beaten Afghanistan in a game India would’ve wanted the latter to win.

A fresh, cyclical journey is waiting to begin now with a new captain coming on board with a new coach. This script, we last saw, was written when India exited the 2007 ICC World Cup under Rahul Dravid’s captaincy in the first round itself. Dravid quit from his role a few months later, coach Greg Chappell quit immediately, and a new chapter began.

As India’s final encounter got over and both teams shook hands, it was one final goodbye from Shastri – the man who was this team’s backbone over the last four years. “What I want to do is give every player a chance. Then it’s also up to them to see what they make of it,” he had said in his initial months as coach after taking over for the second time in 2017. In doing so, he’s leaving behind a vast pool, one that Rahul Dravid will look to fine-tune going forward.

India is Knocked out of the T20 World Cup

After the ODI World Cup and the World Test Championship, New Zealand once again officially ended India’s disappointing T20 World Cup campaign, beating Afghanistan by 8 wickets.