The ‘Perfect’ and ‘Comprehensive’ Victory of Pakistan Against India: 7 Reasons Why It Was A Great Match

This win was Pakistan's first-ever by a ten-wicket margin in men's T20Is and the first such defeat for India in this format. Pakistan became only the fourth team to win a men's T20 World Cup game by ten wickets.

Section 1: Why this win was so memorable

1. Pakistan picked an inexperienced squad and they won!

Yes, it has been more than four years since Pakistan's last World T20 title in the 2013 edition but no player who featured in that tournament will feature in this one. As a result, the current squad members had a point to prove.

The team management picked an inexperienced squad and the batting order were given a surprise and two newcomers – Ibtisam Sheikh and Ali Khan – batted at number six and seven. The two youngsters went for a combined 12 runs but kept it simple and backed their natural instincts to do well. Ibtisam especially did exceedingly well, scoring a 33-ball 29. It was this batting that helped Pakistan reach 122 in the allotted 20 overs.

Challenges Pakistan faced on the pitch

For a high-performance team like Pakistan, it is important to have practice matches against other high-performing teams in order to prepare for the upcoming tournaments. In their recent tour to Zimbabwe, they faced New Zealand in two T20Is. While the first game was a convincing victory by nine wickets, they lost the second game in a thrilling finish after it had looked like they would win by eight wickets. The team management and the players must be very happy with their performance and ruing the defeat. It also gave them some time to reflect and identify some of the issues which worked in New Zealand's favour.

The importance of this victory

This match wasn't even a possible if Pakistan had lost their last group game against New Zealand and India had qualified as the third team in the Super 10 stage of the tournament. This was the final game of the Super 10 stage.

This victory meant that India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, West Indies and New Zealand had been grouped together for the Super 10 stage and that the top four teams, including India, will advance to the semi-finals.

This win meant that Pakistan won't have to play South Africa in the semi-finals. They will go on to play New Zealand in their semi-final.

This victory also meant that there will be a battle between India and Pakistan in the first semi-final match on Wednesday at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) on Wednesday, January 24.

The best part of the match

Pakistan dominated the Indian bowling by exploiting the conditions very well and dished out the best cricket of their lives.

Pakistan had a poor start with the bat and were reduced to 6/2, but Shoaib Malik, who was given a life on 1, hit a short ball from Jasprit Bumrah for a six. He completed his half-century in 28 balls, and went on to hit a match-winning 41-ball 72.

Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar bowled their heart out to restrict Pakistan to a modest total of 136/5, but the game turned on its head once Pakistan's chase got underway.

Skipper Sarfraz Ahmed was the perfect captain as he guided his team to a ten-wicket victory with four balls to spare. Sarfraz took it upon himself to score the winning runs, smashing a six, and finished unbeaten on 68.

What India did wrong

India's poor start

India's start was poor from the start as they lost Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli with only 14 on the board. Shikhar Dhawan and Suresh Raina added 67 runs for the third wicket, but the Indian openers could not provide the kind of platform which was needed from the start.

Pakistan bowlers kept on targeting the same area - Rohit and Virat were only able to score 18 runs off the first four overs before Rohit was bowled by a peach of a delivery by Usman Khan. This was the start of India's collapse as they only managed to score 29 runs in the next six overs before Rohit was bowled for a duck in the ninth over.

For the first time in the tournament, Kohli was dismissed in single digits (3).

Future predictions for both teams

The statistics shows that Pakistan have met India on the two preceding occasions of the 2018 T20 World Cup and the two matches ended in a tie each. India have a slight edge over Pakistan in head to head record in the format and have won three out of the four such matches.

How to watch the final match

India vs Pakistan Live Score and Updates: The highly-anticipated encounter between India and Pakistan will be played at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Hyderabad. The live broadcast is available on Star Sports Network while the live stream can be seen on HotStar.