Pakistan 338 for 4 (Zaman 114, Azhar 59, Hafeez 57*) beat India 158 (Pandya 76, Amir 3-16, Hasan 3-19) by 180 runs
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01:14
Tait: ‘Players are remembered for performances such as Amir’s’
If the 2017 Champions Trophy were to have had another two games, Pakistan might be scoring 750 and bowling teams out for negative 12 by the end of it.
Even for a side that is routinely unpredictable, even for a team with a long history of starting slowly then making a white-hot charge through a tournament, what Pakistan have pulled off at the 2017 Champions Trophy is some diamond-studded, galactic-scale nonsense.
They have not just defied logic, they have spat in logic’s face, questioned the moral inclinations of its parents, kicked it in the shins, put it in a headlock, strangled it unconscious, then shoved it into the mud and set its trousers on fire.
Remember how, before the match (how long ago that now seems), the cricket world thought India’s batsmen would put the match beyond Pakistan if they scored 300? Ha! What actually happened was that newbie opener Fakhar Zaman, playing his fourth international innings, hit 114 from 106 balls in one of the highest-pressure cricket matches of the decade, before a bristling middle order grew the total to 338 for 4, with hitherto unsuspected power and skill.
Remember how the cricket world thought the key period in the contest would be the middle overs in India’s innings. Idiots! In actual fact, Mohammad Amir would decapitate the India innings in a scintillating opening burst that brought him the scalps of each of the top three, and then by the middle of the 14th over, India would be 54 for 5, the trophy basically handed over.
Thank the cricket gods that Azhar Ali dropped Virat Kohli at slip in the third over, before Kohli was caught the very next ball. Thank heavens that Pakistan’s opening stand of 128 was brought to an end by a running mix-up, whereby both batsmen wound up on the same side of the pitch. Without such moments of incompetence in what was otherwise a spectacular allround performance, there is no chance we could plausibly accept that this is the same side that lost their opening match to India by 124 runs.
The winning margin here was 180 runs, just for the record. But it may as well have been 180 million, so dominant were Pakistan in this match.
More to follow..
Andrew Fidel Fernando is ESPNcricinfo’s Sri Lanka correspondent. @andrewffernando
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo