After a rain-hit fixture in Colombo on Sunday and Monday, India won by a whopping 228 runs against the top-ranked ODI team Pakistan. Virat Kohli and KL Rahul scored centuries after which the fast bowlers dominated and Kuldeep Yadav took five wickets to complete the victory. This was India’s biggest ODI win over Pakistan in terms of runs. When Rahul and Kohli got hundreds on the reserve day of the two-day affair against Pakistan, worth 233 runs, the misery on the opposition was heaped on even more, adding hundreds to the match. As a preventative measure, Haris Rauf wasn’t permitted to bowl after he injured his oblique muscle. It was only by using Iftikhar Ahmed’s part-time spin that Babar Azam could cover for the five overs that Rauf couldn’t bowl, and the Indians took advantage of the situation. Pakistan bowlers failed to take wickets, and they regressed further as Rahul and Kohli scored more freely as the innings progressed. In 50 overs, India scored 356/2 with 92 runs off the last eight overs.

Mohammed Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah, who nipped the ball both ways and made Pakistan’s openers look clueless, took over the game straight away after the batters’ displays. It was apparent that Pakistan captain Babar Azam, the world’s No.1 ODI batter, was not looking comfortable during the chase, at balls that swung away and beat the outside edge constantly. Bumrah bowled round the wicket for Imam-ul-Haq, but he squared up and nicked the ball that straightened in the fifth over. Also, Fakhar Zaman struggled against Mohammed Siraj, who switched seamlessly between balls angled across the left-hander and straight from the middle stump line, both of which struck the left-hander. It took India 8.2 overs in the chase for Babar to get off the mark,  similar was the precision of the Indians with the ball. In addition to his captain, Zaman had difficulty putting bat to ball and putting runs on the board.

After surviving two fiery five-over spells from Bumrah and Siraj, Babar was left clueless in the 11th over by Hardik Pandya’s sharp nipbacker. With a wobbly seam, Pandya struck Babar in half and struck his stumps with the ball. After that, showers forced teams off the field and kept them for a little over an hour. Nevertheless, play resumed without a loss of overs, and India continued where it left off. Rohit has given the ball to the golden arm of the Indian team, Shardul Thakur, who didn’t disappoint and bowled a peach out-swinger to Rizwan who nicked it to KL Rahul behind the stumps. Further, Hardik and Shardul bowled tight lines to the Pakistani batters who weren’t looking comfortable at all.

But the collateral damage was done by Kuldeep Yadav from his end, in his second over he cleaned up Fakhar Zaman and put pressure on Pakistan. Agha Salman, who was looking to score, trapped leg before to Kuldeep while sweeping, after Kuldeep ran riot the Pakistani batting line-up and took the wicket of Shadab, Iftikhar, and last wicket Faheem Ashraf with a wrong’un. And helped India win by a convincing margin. The Pakistan innings ended with 128 for 8 wickets, as Naseem Shah and Haris Rauf, were both not available to bat due to injuries.

All in all, it was a one-sided affair in favour of India. India was very professional in all the departments, batting, bowling and fielding. Let’s hope that we’d love to see both teams meet again in the Finals. If India beat Sri Lanka and Pakistan beat Sri Lanka, then we are up to another cracker of a match in the Final