India 211 for 6 (Abhishek 61, Tilak 51, Minhas 3-25, Daniyal 2-43) beat Pakistan 192 for 6 (Nawaz 96, Axar 2-29, Washington 2-29, Dube 2-33) by 19 runs
The pitch in Nisshin was another slow, grippy turner, but the smallness of the outfield meant spinners were under constant pressure to hit their lengths consistently. India hit 15 sixes, and Pakistan ten – that perhaps summed up the difference between the two sides. India had more pedigreed T20 hitters in their line-up, and bowlers with better control too. In packing their side with allrounders, though, they were also perhaps a frontline bowler light, and it showed in the figures of their fourth, fifth and sixth bowlers – Ravi Bishnoi, Abhishek and Shivam Dube went for a combined 100 in eight overs.
Abhishek maximises the powerplay
It was clear from the start that Pakistan’s bowling lacked the pinpoint control to contain a line-up as explosive as India’s. And their plans seemed a little iffy too. For instance, they brought on Saad Masood, a legspinning allrounder making his T20I debut, in the second over against the left-left pair of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Abhishek. In an over reminiscent of Abrar Ahmed to Ishan Kishan in the T20 World Cup earlier this year – a similar match-up that Kishan dominated – Saad went for 24 runs in the over, conceding three sixes and a four.
Sooryavanshi was caught behind off Saim Ayub off the first ball of the next over, earning a look of disgust from his partner – it seemed to communicate his disapproval of Sooryavanshi’s choice of shot, the reverse-sweep. The rest of Abhishek’s innings showed why he may have been disappointed in Sooryavanshi. He tore Pakistan’s attack to shreds, but pretty much all his shots followed a broad plan: sit on the back foot as much as possible, and use the slowness of the pitch to his advantage by shortening the lengths of the spinners. Pakistan’s spinners, for their part, obliged him with some long-hops of their own.
Abhishek hit seven sixes in 27 balls before he fell trying to hit another, undone by low bounce after stepping out to the left-arm spinner Arafat Minhas. At that stage, with India 93 for 3 in 7.5 overs, it looked like Abhishek had batted Pakistan out of the game.
Tilak and Dube finish with a bang
Pakistan’s spin quintet – both teams played just one frontline seamer each – regrouped, though, and conceded just 28 runs in six overs, while taking the wickets of Kishan and Shreyas Iyer, to have India 142 for 5 after 16.
But Pakistan’s control loosened thereafter. Where they had been guilty of bowling too short at the start of India’s innings, they erred too full now, and began feeding Tilak and Shivam Dube with slot balls. They hit six sixes between them in the last four overs, four of them coming off successive balls across the 18th and 19th overs. Ahmed Daniyal, Pakistan’s lone seamer, dismissed Dube off the first ball of the final over, but Tilak ensured there would be no let-up in the hitting, finishing the innings with 6, 6, 2, 1, reaching his half-century along the way.
India scored 69 off their last four overs, and once again looked to have batted Pakistan out of the game.
Nawaz keeps Pakistan in the hunt
Pakistan began their chase with a 33-run opening stand during which Sahibzada Farhan and Maaz Sadaqat kept finding the boundary off the edge. That stand ended when Farhan middled a slog-sweep off Washington Sundar straight to deep midwicket.
False shots continued to bring Pakistan runs through their innings. In all, their batters would score 51 off 49 not-in-control balls, as against India’s 12 off 25. Luck certainly played its part in evening this contest.
The other major factor, however, was Nawaz. He walked in when Pakistan were going nowhere, and 36 for 2 soon became 39 for 3 in 6.1 overs. Nawaz himself took his time early on, and could have been out for 4 off 11 had a collision between Sooryavanshi at long-off and Bishnoi at long-on not caused the former to spill a catch off Abhishek.
But that moment of fortune seemed to flick a switch in Nawaz, and suddenly he began holding his shape beautifully through his big hits. He hit three sixes off the next five balls he faced, off Abhishek and Bishnoi. With Ayub also beginning to pepper the boundary at the other end, India began to worry. The pair put on 87 off 48 balls, with Nawaz by far the dominant partner, contributing 57 off 26.
When Dube came on in the 15th over and immediately removed Ayub, Pakistan needed 86 from 35 with six wickets in hand. Nawaz continued to keep Pakistan in the contest, but by this stage both teams were very aware that there was one Jasprit Bumrah over remaining. He started it with Pakistan needing 44 off 12, and finished it with the equation reading 33 from 6. Debutant Saad hit his one minor misstep – a low full-toss – for a straight six, but the other five balls were near-unhittable, either searing yorkers or slower cutters that gripped and lost a lot of pace off the pitch.
Pakistan were still not out of it mathematically, and it came down to the lumbering Dube – who had bowled a similarly nervy final over in the T20 World Cup semi-final earlier this year, conceding 22 when England had needed 30. Here he gave away a four off the first ball and a wide immediately after, but a pinpoint yorker next up ensured the match was all but sealed mathematically. Nawaz slogged the fourth ball for six to get in sight of a hundred, but his top-edged hook off the final ball settled in Sanju Samson’s gloves, leaving him four runs short.
Karthik Krishnaswamy is an assistant editor at Cricinfo
Source: www.cricinfo.com
