Kandy
A day that started with excitement and anticipation, ended in a bit of damp squib as persistent rain washed out the India-Pakistan encounter at the Pallekele Stadium. Ishan Kishan (82) and Hardik Pandya (87) starred for India, while Shaheen Afridi was the wreaker-in-chief for Pakistan, picking up four wickets.
India, who opted to bat, began on a rather cautious note. There was a bit of swing in the air, and more importantly, the pitch was offering enough nip. Movement in the air and off the pitch was also supplemented by some loopy bounce.
When India had progressed to 15 for 0, there was a mini rain-break. At that juncture, Afridi seemed to be bowling a bit too full ad losing his line a touch. When play resumed, Afridi found the near-perfect length and also enough movement off the pitch to trouble Rohit.
Initially, he beat Rohit with natural variation off the pitch as the ball moved away a tad. By then, Rohit seemed to be playing a touch inside the line. In the same over, Afridi bowled a peach that didn’t just turn out to be an inswinger but also nipped back off the seam to castle the India captain.
Afridi then removed Virat Kohli, India’s lynchpin, with the batter inside-edging a short of a length delivery onto the stumps. For a while, Shreyas Iyer seemed to be in good touch on his return to international cricket. However, he nailed a pull to the midwicket fielder. Iyer did crack the pull quite nicely but just found the fielder to perfection.
Kishan, who replaced Iyer, looked to play with positive intent. The way he essayed the upper-cut off Haris Rauf early on his innings illustrates the point. Initially, he too was troubled by Naseem Shah and to an extent Rauf. One of Rauf’s deliveries seamed back in appreciably from round the wicket and almost pegged back the off-stump.
However, once Kishan waded through those spells, he began to play with a confident gait. Hardik Pandya, who replaced Shubman Gill at the crease, also played with a fair degree of aggression to put the pressure back on Pakistan’s bowlers.
The duo took advantage off some ordinary bowling by the spinners, landing slog-sweeps, drives and pulls. Hardik and Kishan also deftly tailored the ball into gaps to deal in a diet of singles and twos. After Kishan fell to Haris Rauf, Hardik took over, crunching three boundaries in a row off the same bowler. The forehand smash was the highlight of those three shots.
Ultimately, Hardik fell to a slower one from Afridi. After Hardik’s dismissal, India did suffer a mini-collapse. But Jasprit Bumrah landed some timely blows to pilot India to a good score of 266.
Naseem and Rauf took three scalps each. Intriguingly, Naseem didn’t bowl his quota of overs. With the track offering some help for the bowlers, it seemed like a tricky chase for Pakistan. Unfortunately, rain had the final say.
The anti-climax was in sharp contrast to how the day had started. Indian fans kept shouting – jeetaga jeetaga, India jeetaga and Bharat Mata Ki Jai. Pakistani fans had countered it with – Pakistan Zindabad.