Out of the blue! When India won the toss and elected to bowl first in the final of ICC champions trophy on Sunday, no one around the world would have ever expected the Pakistan cricket team celebrating with the Champions cup trophy. But, yes, this happened out of the blue. Final did ended up with the most unexpected result and Pakistan won the ICC Champions trophy, 2017.
When Pakistan lost to India in the group stage it was never expected that Pakistan team could even make it to semi-finals. Then, in the second match against South-Africa, an unknown player name, Fakhar Zaman made his debut and things just changed completely for the whole team. How a positive and energetic player in the team can change the attitude of the whole team was seen in this tournament. He was so fluent in his stroke play from his first match and his positivity on the field evoked energy in the whole Pakistani team. They emerged as a different team with lot more attitude and confidence from there on and defeated teams like Sri-Lanka and England en-route to play finals against India on Sunday.
Coin did landed in India's favour on the day and ended up being the only thing that went India's way on the day. Having sent Pakistan to bat first, Virat's decision was expected to be spot on and it seemed as it would be easy for Indian team from there on getting Pakistan team out for a low score and chasing the same easily. But destiny had some other plans and decision worked as blessing in disguise for the Pakistan cricket team. Pakistani batsman were positive from the start trying to unsettle Indian bowlers by playing aggressive shorts and their luck was completely with them on the day. With few run out chances missed and Bumrah getting Fakhar caught by Dhoni on a no ball, it seemed like fate was Pakistan's way. Pakistan's openers didn't gave any chances from there and Azhar and Zaman gave over a century stand for the first wicket. First wicket fell for 128 runs with Azhar Ali getting run out from a good fielding effort from Bumrah. But Indian bowlers had no stopping on Fakhar Zaman and he carried on from there and with support of Babur(46) and Hafeez(57) completed his maiden one day hundred on the big day in the final of the first tournament he was playing for his country. Pakistan riding on Fakhar's century made 338 runs from their full quota of 50 overs. The 339 target was massive but with the kind of form Indian batsmen had shown in the tournament, they were expected to chase it down.
But again it was Pakistan's day and they had a dream start, Amir got Rohit trapped in front of the wicket in very first over of the innings. Next to follow Rohit was the Captain of Indian cricket team, Virat Kohli. Known for having calm and temperament for chasing down big targets, could not do what was expected from him. After being dropped on first slip, he edged the very next ball to give a simple catch to the point fielder on the balling of Amir, who produced one of the best fast bowling spell of the tournament. He got his third wicket when Dhawan edged one to the keeper for a simple catch and Indians were tottering on 33 for 3. There was nothing much to talk about India's batting on the day and wickets kept on falling like pack of cards. Pandya in the middle tried to give some hope to optimistic fans but got run out after playing a blaster of an inning making 76 runs off just 43 balls with 4 fours and 6 huge sixes. Other than Pandya no Indian batsman could stand on the pitch for long and the whole team got out for mighty low score of 158 runs in the 31st over of the innings handing away the Champions trophy to the arch rivals Pakistan. Pakistan won it by 180 runs.
It was commendable for a team ranked no 8 to play the kind of cricket they played in whole tournament with just one failure against India in their first match of the tournament. Million Indian hearts were broken though to see the rare failure from Indian time, alas, not at the right time.
Brief Scores: Pakistan 338/4 from 50 overs, F Zaman 114(106, 12 X 4, 3 X 6) B Kumar 1/44
India 158 all out in 30.3 overs, H Pandya 76 (43, 4 X 4, 6 X 6)
Pakistan won by 180 runs
Player of the match: Fakhar Zaman
Player of the tournament: Hasan Ali
Golden Bat: Shikhar Dhawan (338 runs)
Golden Ball: Hasan Ali (13 wickets)
Comments
Post a Comment