India 244 for 4 (Kohli 100*, Iyer 56, Gill 46, Afridi 2-74) beat Pakistan 241 (Shakeel 62, Rizwan 46, Kuldeep 3-40, Hardik 2-31) by six wickets
A game in an ICC event and a rivalry with history bursting out of every pore eventually became so one-sided that its last few moments were dominated by an individual pursuit. Axar Patel turned down an easy two so Kohli could get to his hundred. The crowd in Dubai loved that. There were 12 runs to get for India’s victory and 12 runs to get for their hero’s century and they chanted his name over and over. Pakistan were nowhere to be found. Ever since a collapse of 3 for 11 in 19 balls, this game turned pear-shaped for them.
And it kinda did. Rizwan fell trying to hit Axar out of the ground and his wicket triggered a collapse. Shakeel fell in the next over and Tayyab Tahir followed soon after. India, having spent 320 deliveries across two matches searching for a wicket in the middle overs, had found three in the space of four. Pakistan were 165 for 5. Soon they would be 200 for 7, having to negotiate the last 7.1 overs of the innings with their tail exposed.
India’s discipline never let Pakistan off the hook and leading the way was Hardik, banging the ball just short of a length on a pitch that was offering a bit of grip and some tennis-ball bounce. He took out Babar Azam at a time when India’s lead fast bowler, Mohammed Shami, was off the field with a shin problem, and he did Shakeel for lack of pace just after the left-hand batter had smacked him for four. He always knew what to do to exploit the conditions and make the batter’s life miserable. On the back of his work, Kuldeep and Rana bowled 6.4 death overs for 28 runs and picked up four wickets.
Gill was the star of India’s chase early on, a conscious effort to keep his front foot from moving too far forward and across leaving him excellently placed to take advantage of Afridi and his full-length deliveries when there was no swing on offer. When he rammed the fast bowler down the ground and then one-upped it by coming down the track and lifting the ball into the sightscreen, it looked like it was going to be his day. Abrar intervened with a ball that drifted in, tempting Gill to close the face of his bat, and turned away to rattle middle and off stump. Gill was stunned.
Kohli, too, offered a shrug of his shoulders. He looked vulnerable against Abrar too and was almost bowled playing back to him. But against the quicks, he was vintage. He went past 14,000 runs with a crisp cover drive off Haris Rauf. All of Pakistan’s best bowlers offer pace on the ball. And that is Kohli’s happy place. A batter of his quality needs to be made uncomfortable at the crease when he is new. He had been dismissed five times in his last six ODIs by legspin. Pakistan had one of those and they felt they couldn’t go to him.
Shreyas Iyer helped himself to a half-century. A little change in his technique where he holds his bat higher and waves it as the bowler approaches, creating momentum into his shots, is helping him deal with an earlier weakness against the short ball. He clubbed Rauf for four in front of square to prove it. But there was no taking the spotlight from his senior partner.
Kohli was setting the tempo. Pakistan had allowed him to do so. Though he only hit three of his first 62 balls to the boundary, he already had fifty runs to his name. He knows how to score quickly without looking for big shots. The ball wasn’t stopping on the surface as much under lights. Things were working in his favour again. He almost knew he was going to get a hundred. He demanded an explanation when Axar turned down a second run off a wide in the 42nd over when it was clear to everybody else that all he was doing was make sure Kohli had the best chance to get to three figures with time running out. When he did, off the last ball of the match, Kohli looked to the dressing room and literally said, “I told you. Relax.” That was how easy this was. That was how inevitable he was.
Alagappan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
