T20 World Cup’s showpiece fixture, in doubt until Monday, saw Suryakumar Yadav’s men maintain their winning record over their rivals
India have continued their remarkable World Cup stranglehold over Pakistan but a fractious build-up spilled on to the field as the teams again did not shake hands at the end of their Colombo contest.
Defending champions India steamrollered their neighbours by 61 runs in a grudge group A match at the Twenty20 World Cup to swagger into the Super Eight stage of the tournament on Sunday.
Pakistan’s government only gave the go-ahead for the team to fulfil the match on Monday amid continuing geopolitical tensions between the countries, who have not played a bilateral series since 2012.
The animosity stretched to the players as India’s skipper Suryakumar Yadav and his Pakistan counterpart Salman Agha did not shake hands at the toss and the players all ignored each other afterwards.
There were no handshakes in their two meetings at the Asia Cup last September either, their first fixtures against each other since the military conflict last May.
India came into this contest, the most lucrative of the tournament, with a 15-1 win-loss record against their arch-rivals at World Cups, while also being victorious in their last five T20s – and nothing changed on Sunday.
The match didn’t live up to the hype with India again dominating, with opener Ishan Kishan’s breakneck 77 powering them to a commanding 7-175 at the R Premadasa Stadium against Pakistan’s six spinners who bowled 18 of their 20 overs.
India returned to bundle out Pakistan for 114 in 18 overs to register their third win in a row.
“India v Pakistan is a special game for us and our country. It is a very important game,” player-of-the-match Kishan said.
“They had good spinners and we tried to play good shots. It gives us confidence going ahead in the tournament.”
India were reinforced by the return of Abhishek Sharma, who missed the first two matches with a stomach infection, but Salman, who sprang a surprise by opening the attack himself, trapped him lbw for a duck.
Kishan couldn’t be contained by the spinners and he took only 27 balls to race to his second successive half-century of the tournament.
Saim Ayub (3-25) ended his match-defining 40-ball blitz, while also dismissing Tilak Varma (25) and Hardik Pandya with successive deliveries to turn the heat back on India.
Suryakumar (32) and Shivam Dube (27) could not quite provide the late flourish but India still posted a total that proved well beyond Pakistan’s reach.
In reply, Pakistan slumped to 3-13 in two overs in their chase, with Pandya removing in-form opener Sahibzada Farhan for a duck and Jasprit Bumrah dismissing Ayub and Salman in the same over.
Babar Azam (five) did not last long either and Pakistan were gasping at 4-38 after the six powerplay overs.
Usman Khan (44) defied India for a while but Axar Patel lured him out to be stumped to effectively snuff out Pakistan’s chances of an unlikely victory.
“Our spinners had an off day today,” said Salman. “We always believe in them because they have done well in the last six months. In the first innings it was tacky and the ball was gripping but the execution was missing.”
The United States meanwhile have kept their hopes of reaching the Super Eights stage alive as they ended their Group A campaign with two straight wins, after beating Namibia by 31 runs on Sunday.
Captain Monank Patel and Sanjay Krishnamurthi led the way with half-centuries on Sunday after the Americans chose to bat and posted 4-199 in Chennai.
Namibia fell well short as Shadley van Schalkwyk (2-27) and Saurabh Netravalkar (1-27) restricted their flow of runs.
The US, who lost their first two matches to India and Pakistan, finished with four points, and will hope their positive net run-rate earns them a top-two finish and a place in the next round.
And in the earlier match, West Indies trampled Nepal by nine wickets in Mumbai. thank to Jason Holder’s 4-27 and captain Shai Hope’s 61no.
