India vs Pakistan: Rohit Sharma, bowlers star in Men in Blue's dominant 7-wicket win

India beat Pakistan by 7 wickets to extend their unbeaten record against the arch-rivals in World Cup contests. After the win at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Saturday, India’s record against Pakistan in the ODI World Cups stands at 8-0.

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Rohit Sharma emerged top-scorer for India in the small 192 run chase. At the top of the order, Sharma struck 86 runs. Shreyas Iyer remained unbeaten on 53 runs when he scored the winning runs with a shot down the ground.

In an extremely lopsided contest, Rohit completed the annihilation as India produced a near-perfect performance to win with 117 balls to spare.

Rohit casually flaunted his repertoire of strokes, which included a pull shot behind square of Shaheen Shah Afridi and a square driven six off Haris Rauf.

Earlier, while batting first, Pakistan went from 155/2 to 191 runs all out with eight wickets falling in the gap of 36 runs within 13 overs. Babar Azam top-scored for Pakistan with a fifty while Mohammad Rizwan struck 49 runs.

For India, all of Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Hardik Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja took two wickets.

Pakistan came into the contest with the hopes of erasing a miserable 0-7 win-loss World Cup record against India. Rohit Sharma won the toss and put Pakistan in to bat with Babar Azam also conceding he would have liked to field. In team news, India brought Shubman Gill back into the playing XI after he recovered from dengue fever. Pakistan, hot off a massive win over Sri Lanka, remained unchanged.

Despite striking Mohd. Siraj for three boundaries in an over, Pakistan opted for a cautious start especially against Jasprit Bumrah. After conceding plenty of runs early on, it was Siraj who provided India the breakthrough. A cross seam delivery stayed low, straightened and had Abdullah Shafique plumb in front.

Imam-ul-Haq was the next to fall. Hardik Pandya, having just been struck for a boundary, roared back with a wicket on the very next ball as Imam looked to drive but conceded an outside edge for KL Rahul to grab on to the ball with ease.

Pakistan’s dependable pairing of Azam and Rizwan steadied things by forging a 82 run stand. Rizwan survived on DRS after being given out by the on-field umpire. On review, the video umpire adjudged Ravindra Jadeja’s delivery to be going down leg. An umpire’s call came to Babar’s aid in the 25th over. At halfway stage, Pakistan were 125/2 and looked good for 275-280 run total.

Once again against the run of play, Siraj struck to get India a massive breakthrough. Right after bringing up his fifty, Babar tried to guide the ball to third man but failed to make connection and saw it go through to hit the top of off stump. That was the beginning of the collapse for Pakistan.

Kuldeep Yadav struck with two wickets in an over by removing Saud Shakeel and Iftikhar Ahmed. Saud departed after being caught leg before. Iftikhar, meanwhile, was unlucky to get a glove to a wrong one bowled down leg stump.

Rizwan, who had survived this mayhem, was next in line. Bumrah returned into the attack and bowled an off cutter which Rizwan missed to see the ball hit the stumps.

Mohammad Nawaz and Hasan Ali fell on consecutive deliveries to further the misery. Nawaz tried to clear Bumrah at mid-on but failed to make good contact as Pandya struck. On the next ball, Hasan Ali tried to start with a massive hit but could only muster a mistimed shot that went upward for Shubman Gill to complete a simple catch.

The formalities were complete went Haris Rauf departed to Jadeja, given out leg before on a review.