After two days of intense cricket which was often interrupted by rain, India has emerged victorious after defeating Pakistan by the highest margin ever between them (228 runs) in the Super 4 match of Asia Cup at Colombo.
The game started off well on the 10th of September when skipper Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill both scored half-centuries to make a 121 run opening partnership, however, both of them could not convert their 50’s to something significant and got dismissed in consecutive overs. It was then Virat Kohli and KL Rahul who took over and scored a 233 run partnership on the reserve day (11th September) which completely took the game away from Pakistan.
The 233 run partnership between Virat Kohli and KL Rahul consisted of centuries by both Kohli and Rahul. This was KL Rahul’s 6th ODI century which was highly significant given the fact that he has just come back into the team after being out for several months due to injury. Virat Kohli also went on to score his 47th century just 2 centuries behind the all time high of 49 centuries by Sachin Tendulkar. Virat Kohli also became the fastest player to score 13,000 runs in ODI cricket in just 267 innings. This record comes in after Kohli was also the fastest player to score 8000, 9000, 10,000, 11,000, 12,000 runs in ODI cricket.
The batting excellence shown by India took its total to 356/2 and presented a very tough challenge to Pakistan, who, however, could not overcome it after a 5 wicket haul by chinaman spinner Kuldeep Yadav decimated the Pakistani batting lineup which was reduced to 128/8 in 32 overs and since Naseem Shah and Haris Rauf were injured and could not bat, the Pakistani innings ended at 128. The Pakistani innings did not show promise or even challenge the Indian bowlers at any point as the highest scorer for Pakistan in this entire game was Fakhar Zaman who scored 27 runs.
India will now face Sri Lanka tomorrow at 3PM local time (3PM IST) in Colombo as part of their Super 4 fixture and then Bangladesh on Friday the 15th. The match against Sri Lanka will be of immense importance as India will stay alive in this tournament and possibly even go to the finals if they win against Sri Lanka, even if the match against Bangladesh is washed away or lost by India.
