Kohli stars as India thrash Pakistan

The day that started with contrasting hope flooding the streets of Adelaide, that then built to a deafening crescendo as Virat Kohli led his team to an imposing total and Pakistan to a late counter-punch ended with maintenance of the status quo.

The reigning Cricket World Cup champions, who had been without an international win since arriving in Australia in November, suddenly have their defence back on track after an emphatic 76-run all-round dismantling of their arch-foe.

Pakistan needed to become just the second team in ODI history to mount a successful run chase of more than 300 if they were to overtake India’s 50-over total of 7-300 and break their neighbour’s head-to-head World Cup streak of five consecutive wins.

The only team to have managed that feat was Sri Lanka who ran down England’s 302 with a wicket to spare in a 1999 match better remembered for Arjuna Ranatunga’s threat to take his team off the field and out of the country, as well as a number of unpleasant on-field exchanges.

By contrast, the only potential flashpoints in today’s showdown came when Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi pinned Kohli in the small of his back with a throw at the stumps, the unintentional blow softened by the immediate and mutual exchange of back-slapping.

And when Kohli unwisely, but not uncharacteristically engaged in a verbal stoush with opposing fast bowler Sohail Khan when the fiery quick had a bat in his hand and the game was all but done.

At night’s end, as the final hour fizzled about as effectively as a candlelit outdoor wedding in monsoon season, it was India and their delirious supporters left to exchange group hugs and high fives among themselves.

Or a high six, as their World Cup scoreline against Pakistan now reads.

Not surprisingly, a team that was being written off at home and elsewhere as jaded and “over-cooked” after a fruitless tour to date found an intensity and a winning recipe in a game that in addition to attracting more than 41,000 partisan fans to Adelaide Oval and potentially a billion more viewers worldwide, netted India two crucial World Cup points.

And for those who – unlike a majority of the 41,587 crowd that has transformed Adelaide into a mini-Ahmedabad over the weekend – did not travel from interstate or abroad for the pulsating occasion, it carried an even more familiar air.

After all, it was Kohli who had almost single-handedly delivered India a remarkable win in last December’s opening Test in Adelaide with centuries in each innings on his debut as captain, which followed his memorable Test hundred at the same venue three summers earlier.

"I could wrap this ground up and take it home with me," the 26-year-old cricket rock star claimed between innings having rediscovered the early tour touch that looked to have left for home ahead of him in recent outings.

The ovation afforded Kohli when mug shots of the teams’ starting line-ups were flashed on the stadium-sized version of the video screens the world over showing this match rivalled anything that’s greeted a home-town hero in either the summer or winter sports.

Only the reception India’s phalanx of fans offered up for their World Cup hero MS Dhoni and the jubilation of the outnumbered but always undaunted Pakistan supporters at the call of Afridi’s name rivalled it.

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India fans celebrate their big victory

But finding comfort in a setting that has yielded so much individual success in immersing himself in the intensity of competition on which he clearly thrives, India’s Test captain and ODI captain-in-waiting willed himself to a match-defining score.

He could have conceivably been sent packing with three against his name, when he got too far under an attempted heave over mid-wicket from Afridi and watched with the same sense of foreboding as he felt in that tense final session of the recent Adelaide Test as it flew into the deep.

Had Yasir Shah hared rather than tortoised over the first few metres as he moved to meet it, he might well have caught it well before the half-volley that he eventually snared.

Kohli immediately gave himself a terse dressing down and kept the ball predominantly along the ground as he reached his half-century from 60 deliveries.

At which point he allowed himself a discreet but clearly defiant fist pump that signalled to all he felt the job not yet half done.

That resolve was galvanised in the 30th over when Kohli blamed himself for the demise of Shikhar Dhawan after the pair had fashioned a 129-run partnership from 134 balls for the second wicket.

Having lurched deep in his crease to work the ball to mid-wicket, he then bolted three or four steps down the pitch which convinced his partner there was a single being sought and Dhawan’s despairing dive was but a centimetre or so from beating Misbah-ul-Haq’s bullseye.

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Kohli registered his 22nd ODI century

Kohli threw back his head in anguish at his error, and from there re-doubled his efforts to anchor his team’s batting.

As Suresh Raina accepted his promotion in the batting order by launching himself at the Pakistan bowlers, reinvigorated by the breakthrough as well as the gusty southerly breeze that dropped temperatures well below the earlier baking maximum, Kohli knuckled down.

His second 50 contained just two boundaries as he opted to manoeuvre rather than bludgeon the ball on a pitch that was more two-paced than tricky, and upon reaching his century he punched the air, raised both arms aloft and then shifted his focus to a final assault.

He and Raina scored at around two runs per ball as they threw caution to the wind that would have been howling if not for the even more voluminous euphoria of the chanting, dancing, flag-waving Indian fans.

But when Kohli’s innings ended chasing a wide ball in search of runs and Raina followed less than two overs later, sending a mighty swing into the flight paths of the commercial airliners that skim the Oval’s northern perimeter, India’s late-innings charge stalled.

What looked set to be a total closing in on 350 was suddenly in danger of falling below 300 – which would have made them the first team of the two-day-old World Cup not to reach that benchmark when batting first – as the run rate dropped and wickets fell with it.

In losing 5-27 from their final five overs, India managed to do what Kohli and his top-order teammates had worked so hard to avoid throughout the afternoon and gave Pakistan much-needed momentum as they eyed history.

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Adelaide turned on a show as the world watched on

That enabled them to rally after the early loss of veteran Younus Khan, who had been in the Test form of his life last year and knew the prevailing conditions better than most having played for South Australia many seasons back, who gloved a brutal bouncer from Mohammed Shami.

However, that impetus then slowed despite the brave efforts of Haris Sohail (36 from 48 balls) and Ahmad Shahzad (47 off 73 with several frustratingly flat spots among it) and then screamed to a stop with the sort of bang only Pakistan can regularly muster.

The loss of Shahzad, Sohaib Maqsood and Umar Akmal – to a cannily ironic use of the Decision Review System by Dhoni – for the addition of a single in the space of an over and a half effectively ended Pakistan’s hopes of breaking their World Cup duck against their neighbour.

From there, the resistance was fleeting – a 46-run sixth-wicket union between old stagers Misbah (a typically combative innings-high 76 from 84 balls in a lost cause) and Afridi gave some cause for the fans in green to give a final yelp.

But the task that seemed enormous at the outset was all-too-suddenly rendered illusory.

The day’s enduring reality is that India are capable of winning matches of consequence on Australian soil.

And the World Cup tournament they and Pakistan have christened with loud and prolonged fanfare will be all the better for it.

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Pakistan's fans were vocal despite being outnumbered

India
Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni (c, wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Ravi Ashwin, Umesh Yadav, Mohit Shamra, Mohammad Shami

Pakistan
Ahmed Shehzad, Younis Khan, Haris Sohail, Misbah-ul-Haq (c), Shoaib Maqsood, Umar Akmal (wk), Shahid Afridi, Wahab Riaz, Yasir Shah, Sohail Khan, Mohammad Irfan