Match No. 16 of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 was played between India and Pakistan on 23 October, Sunday in Melbourne. Pakistan scored 159 runs at the loss of 8 wickets in the first innings. India chased down the score at the very last ball. Virat Kohli scored a match-winning 82 runs in 53 balls.
India won the toss and chose to bowl first. In the high-octane clash, Pakistan was put to bat first under pressure. Star batsman Babar Azam was dismissed for a golden duck by Arshdeep Singh in the second over. Mohammad Rizwan was also dismissed early. Shan Masood and Iftikhar Ahmed put up a strong partnership of 76 runs to put India in a backseat. Iftikhar Ahmed scored 51 runs in 34 balls with 2 fours and 4 sixes. After that partnership, Pakistan’s innings collapsed when Hardik dismissed Shadab Khan and Haider Ali in the same over. Shan Masood kept going while wickets were falling from the other end. He made 52 runs in 42 balls with 5 fours. Small Camero from Shaheen Shah Afridi of 16 runs in 8 balls helped Pakistan to put up a challenging score for Indian batters.
For India, Arshdeep Singh redeemed himself with his bowling since his dropped catch in the last match against Pakistan in the Asia Cup. He dismissed one of the batters in the world at the moment, Babar Azam, in the first ball of his innings. He also dismissed no. 1 ranked T20I batter Mohammad Rizwan early in the innings. He finished his spell with 3 wickets. Hardik Pandya also bowled well and crumbled Pakistan’s batting. He scalped 3 wickets giving only 30 runs. Mohammad Shami and Bhuvneshwar Kumar were top-notch with their pace bowling. They took 1 wicket each.
India was under serious pressure coming into the chase. Pacer Shaheen Afridi and Naseem Shah made sure to not give any runs to the openers. KL Rahul could not squeeze the pressure and was dismissed for 4 runs in 8 balls. Captain Rohit Sharma was also a flop in the big match. India was reduced to 31-4 when Axar Patel was run out. Then the duo of Hardik Pandya and Virat Kohli put up a match-winning partnership of 113 runs. Hardik Pandya scored 40 runs in 37 balls. Virat Kohli was class apart in the chase. He made sure that India got over the line. He scored 82 runs in 53 balls with 6 fours and 4 sixes.
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Pakistan bowlers were in the zone from the first ball. Haris Rauf and Mohammed Nawaz took 2 wickets and Naseem Shah took 1 wicket.
The story of the game changed in the last over of the match. Mohammad Nawaz was asked to defend 16 runs in the last over. He delivered in the first ball by taking the wicket of Hardik Pandya. But he wrongly bowled a No ball for a six. Which pulled the match in India’s favor. Finally, Ravichandran Ashwin scored the winning runs.
Virat Kohli was awarded Player of the match for playing one of the finest innings in his career
India started their world cup campaign by gaining crucial 2 points.
