TNI Bureau: Team India managed to set a crazy win against the arch-rivals Pakistan in their opening face off of the 2022 T20 World Cup. The match had it all, but Virat Kohli showed why he’s the legendary batter among the current generation as he completed a classic chase against the Men in Green.
Melbourne Cricket Ground clearly witnessed one of the most nerve racking India- Pakistan matches in the history of cricket. When it was looking like Pakistan have sealed the competition, India made an emphatic comeback in the last many overs to register a palm that will be flashed back for periods.
Batting first, Pakistan managed to score a competitive aggregate of 159/8 due to half- centuries from Iftekhar Ahmed and Shan Masood. Arshdeep Singh took the lattices of Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan relatively beforehand, but it was an excellent fightback by the rest of the Pakistan batters.
India just couldn’t get going as well, and they lost 4 wickets for just 31 runs, but Virat Kohli was in his zone, and he was adamant that he’ll take the side home. He got an suitable mate in Hardik Pandya, and both of them added 113 runs for the 5th gate. Virat was obviously the raider.
Team India demanded 24 runs in the last 8 balls, and Virat smashed Haris Rauf for two successive sixes on the last two balls of the 19th over.
There was a lot of drama in the last over, where India lost the lattices of Hardik Pandya and Dinesh Karthik, but India managed to win the match on the last ball. Kohli scored 82 runs in just 53 balls at a strike- rate of 154.72.
And in the process, he also scripted history once again. He kept his chasing record in T20Is intact. India have a 100% win record when Kohli remains unbeaten in a run chase in T20Is. The Chase Master has remained unbeaten on 18 occasions in T20Is and Team India has won all those games, setting a new stunning record by breaking all.