Dubai, October 23
The most sought-after stars of the current generation are primed to show their might against a bunch of enigmatic cricketers as India and Pakistan engage in their T20 World Cup faceoff here tomorrow.
The sensitive nature of cross-border relationships between the neighbours has led to minimal sporting engagements and cricket, yet again, becomes a vehicle for one-upmanship for fans.
In terms of numbers, India have an all-win record against their archrivals in the T20 World Cup since its inception in 2007. Incidentally, all those wins were recorded under MS Dhoni, who is presently with the team as mentor, on the express wishes of skipper Virat Kohli.
This is a match that everyone awaits in any ICC event — the fans because of its novelty, the ICC and the broadcasters for filling up the coffers.
Be it Sunil Gavaskar or Sourav Ganguly, everyone who understands the game would tell you that T20 cricket is that one format in which the margins are thinnest and qualitative differences matter the least: A single performer, in a matter of a few balls, can win the match.
Tomorrow it could be Kohli, who would love to improve on his run of mediocre scores in recent past; it could be the young fast bowler Shaheen Afridi, who would wish to rattle the Indian batting the way Hasan Ali did in the Champions Trophy final in 2017. It could be the exciting Mohammed Rizwan, or it could be Suryakumar Yadav.
No baggage
The players may say that it’s just “another game of cricket”, but even they know that in this day and age of retro videos and offensive memes, a not-so-great performance is impossible to sweep under the carpet. No one knows this better than current chairman of selectors Chetan Sharma, who is carrying the cross of a last ball-six he conceded to Javed Miandad in 1986.
But cricket has changed much since those days of Sharjah and India, with a robust structure and talent factory, has produced world-class performers by the dozen.
The Kohlis, the Rohit Sharmas and the Jasprit Bumrahs don’t carry any baggage of adverse results against Pakistan, despite the blip in the 2017 Champions Trophy final.
India’s strength is a crack top-five that comprises Rohit, Rahul, Kohli, Yadav and Rishabh Pant. The problem is going to be a long tail and the absence of a sixth bowler, with Hardik Pandya not bowling.
As per the MSD doctrine of T20 cricket, this format is all about handling the pressure and if 20 runs are required off 10 balls, Pandya is still a better bet than a greenhorn like Ishan Kishan, who is admittedly in better batting form.
“We have considered a couple of other options to chip in for an over or two. So we are not bothered at all. What he (Pandya) brings in at that spot is something that one can’t create overnight,” said Kohli, backing him.
The bowling department will depend on which side of the track they are playing as Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja, Shami and Varun Chakravarthy pick themselves. If an extra spinner is needed, R Ashwin, with his great game awareness, could be more effective than Rahul Chahar.
Strong Pak bowling
On Sunday, the Pakistanis will have a lot more to prove than their Indian counterparts. For the likes of Afridi, Rizwan, Harris Rauf and captain Babar Azam, it will not just be about breaking a World Cup jinx against India. They want to do well tomorrow — and in the whole tournament — because of the way England and New Zealand treated their country, cancelling tours to Pakistan after the Taliban took over the neighbouring Afghanistan.
For Pakistan, their two main players will be skipper Azam and Afridi. Afridi must strike with the new ball as Hasan and Rauf could prove expensive.
Left-arm spinner Imad has a great record in the UAE, while the wily old Shoaib Malik and Mohammed Hafeez can play a strong hand with bat or ball. — TNS, PTI
‘Just another game!’
Virat Kohli today was keen to play down the hype. “It’s very important for us to keep focused on that because a game like this, there’s such unnecessary stuff — from a professional point of view — happening on the outside,” Kohli said. “It’s fine as long as it stays outside our controlled environment, we just focus on what we need to do as cricketers and hence it’s no different from other games of cricket that we play. Yes, the atmosphere in the stadium is different but our mindset is no different and our preparations are no different.”
His counterpart, Babar Azam, echoed these sentiments. “To be honest, we don’t want to focus on the past. We are looking forward to this World Cup. We will focus on our strength, ability and apply that on the day,” the Pakistan captain said.
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