Shamik Chakrabarty in Dubai
Shubman Gill’s form in the nets was making us gushing — those who watched him at close quarters at the ICC Academy. His match form is touching sublimity. Gill scored an unbeaten century in India’s Champions Trophy opener against Bangladesh. That was an excellent effort all right, but the validation of his purple patch came in the Pakistan game — in the seventh over during India’s chase to be precise.
Shaheen Shah Afridi, who was pedestrian to start with, suddenly came up with an in-swinging yorker to castle Rohit Sharma. His tail up, the fast bowler added an extra couple of yards of pace to his bowling. He had Gill facing him in the next over and the best passage of play in the entire game ensued. Shaheen bowled a touch short, and Gill dispatched it to the mid-wicket boundary with a short-arm pull. The left-arm seamer overcorrected his length and bowled a little wide outside off. The opener’s response was a glorious off-drive for a four — the shot of the match. His ego hurt, Shaheen resorted to a cutter and drew a leading edge. But the ball eluded the point fielder and rolled away to the boundary. The next ball beat the batter on the outside edge.
It was all square, but Gill would soon tilt the scale in his favour with two more boundaries in Shaheen’s next over — the second being an audacious lofted drive over the bowler’s head. At the other end, Virat Kohli didn’t mind playing second fiddle.
Gill was nearing his half-century when Khushdil Shah dropped him at mid-wicket off Haris Rauf. It felt like Pakistan dropped the match, but Abrar Ahmed bowled a jaffa to dismiss Gill. It needed a special delivery to see the back of him, and mobile flashlights were turned on en masse at Dubai International Stadium. Indian fans comfortably outnumbered their Pakistani counterparts in the stands and their team was still in a very healthy position in their chase. But the pitch was getting trickier and Abrar was bowling.
Any chance of the evening getting darker, from India’s perspective, was put to rest by Kohli — the ultimate aristocrat in the world of the nouveau riche. From turning up at the nets early on the match eve to looking confident right from the outset in the match, he was determined to score runs in the big game. Kohli in the right headspace is a dangerous thing for the opponents. Pakistan yet again learnt it the hard way.
Kohli scored 100 not out off 111 balls, his 51st ODI hundred, and completed 14,000 runs in the process. A signature cover drive off Rauf took him to the landmark. Another cover drive four balls later was a double whammy. That said, he had only seven boundaries in his innings, attesting how well he took his singles and the twos.
A 114-run third-wicket partnership between Kohli and Shreyas Iyer took India on the cusp of victory and Pakistan, the tournament hosts, on the brink of elimination. Shreyas got a reprieve on 25, but played a good hand to score 56 off 67 balls. But he was always the support-cast, while Kohli was playing the lead.
Towards the end, fans serenaded the superstar with “Kohli, Kohli” chants and there was a moral in the story — never write a great player off, ever.
Earlier, Pakistan won the toss and made 241 all out. They couldn’t build on a 104-run fourth wicket stand between Mohammad Rizwan (46) and Saud Shakeel (62), losing wickets in clusters at the back-end of their innings. Hardik Pandya was India’s best bowler, dismissing Babar Azam and a well-set Shakeel.
Kuldeep Yadav returned 3/40 from nine overs, including the scalps of Salman Agha and Shaheen in successive deliveries. Jadeja bowled a peach to account for Tayyb Tahir. India won by six wickets with 45 balls to spare to all but qualify for the semi-finals.