Highly Anticipated Indo-Pak Semi-final

The true essence of the word ‘anticipation’ was seen in the eyes of the cricket fanatics of both India and Pakistan. On 30th March 2011, the whole of India and Pakistan, along with cricket loving people across the world, were glued to television to experience the hardly fought contest between the two gladiators of international cricket. With every ball bowled and every shot played, there was a huge roar in the crowd present in the PCA Stadium, Mohali witnessing the action live.

India played like masters of the game and absorbed the pressure well, as Indo-Pak encounters have always been of high intensity with some fierce battles of bat & ball and the mighty words. As per the cricket pundits, the Indo-Pak match has always been a battle between the stars studded Indian batting line-up and Pakistani competitive bowlers. But this time around it turned out to be an altogether different ball game. With Tendulkar top scoring with 85 and Raina playing a little but useful cameo of 36 in 39 balls, India just managed to score 260. Finally, it was all depended on the Indian bowling and fielding to make sure that India beat Pakistan to play the finals against Sri Lanka.

As always Zaheer bowled like a cunning medium pacer who was miser as far as giving runs to the Pak batsmen was concerned. They had to literally earn each and every run from the sharp and disciplined Indian bowlers. The Indian bowling was well complimented by great fielders like Raina, Kholi, and Yuvraj, which at least stopped 25-30 runs in the field.

The selection of left arm medium-fast bowler Ashish Nehra was highly criticised but Dhoni thought otherwise. Nehra too came to the party with figures of 3 for 33 in his 10 overs. Nehra supported Zaheer and helped in maintaining the pressure on the Pak batsmen. With spinners Harbhajan and Yuvraj bowling in tandem, as and when asked by skipper Dhoni, Pakistan batsmen never looked in command of their innings. With all five bowlers picking up 2 wickets each, it was a collective effort from team India bowlers to all out Pakistan for 231, and winning the match by 29 runs.

We all have seen in the past the aggressive on-field behaviour of the players for instance the all popular battle between Ghambhir and Afridi and another one with Kamran Akmal. But this time around the cricket was played in its true spirit and the team which absorbed the pressure well comes out triumph. Thus, this battle between the cricketing geniuses concluded peacefully, sending a strong message to the diplomats that the common man just wants good cricket match and no war.