After the Toss, India batted first and it KL Rahul who started firing right from the start while Rohit Sharma took a backseat. India’s Powerplay was powered by Rahul’s quickfire innings with brilliant shots against everything Pakistan had to over. After a double-wicket over mid-innings, by Imad Wasim, Shreyas Iyer continued what Rahul had started and remained unbeaten till the end to see India put up a defendable total of 182/5.

In reciprocation to the target of 183, Pakistan looked fairly confident with openers Babar Azam and Fakhar Zaman staying in the middle forming a stable first-wicket partnership of 46 runs after which Zaman’s wicket fell in the sixth over. Since his wicket, Pakistan run rate in the chase took a hit and the asking rate continued to increase as the Indian bowlers kept the runs in check and there was no recovery from it. Pakistan had one wicket remaining in the end but, however, lost the game by 35 runs. 

The turning point of the game was Asif Ali’s wicket in the 13th over, when Pakistan had reached the three-figure mark. Together Babar Azam and Asif Ali had built a stable fourth-wicket partnership after Pakistan lost Mohammad Hafeez and Shoaib Malik in successive overs for cheap. However, after Ali’s wicket, even though Imad Wasim tried to accelerate the chase, Pakistan fell short by a huge margin since wickets kept tumbling down.

According to me, the low of this game was the form of the senior players of Pakistan’s batting. Even now, in many T20I games, Shoaib Malik and Mohammad Hafeez act as enforcers of the batting order but their wickets that fell in quick succession, across the sixth and seventh overs, had Pakistan at a shaky position quite early in their chase.

At the end of the Powerplay, India were on 43 for no loss with only KL Rahul firing and Rohit Sharma carrying taking the backseat. Hence, India’s Powerplay exploits were not as magnificent as one would have expected as two explosive batsmen were in the middle. At the point, after the end of the first six overs, Rohit was on 8* off 15 while Rahul was firing at 35 off 21. 

The middle overs started with KL Rahul’s explosive over against Haris Rauf, squeezing out 22 runs in the 7th over. Even as Rahul left the field, adding 62 runs off 34 deliveries, India were on a strong position 86/1 off 9.5 overs. Even as India lost captain Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma on the next couple of deliveries, Shreyas, who was on 23* off 14 at the end of the middle overs, anchored and accelerated the innings to see India on 121/3 at the end of the 15th over.

In the last five overs of the first innings, India added 61 runs while losing only a couple of wickets. Shreyas Iyer(53 n.o. off 28) powered the death overs firing against all bowlers starting from Shadab Khan to Mohammad Amir. Pakistan, despite being able to Rishabh Pant and Hardik Pandya out in the final overs, couldn’t restrict Iyer’s breezy attack.

Despite what the margin of the result might portray, this game between India and Pakistan was fairly fought game for at least 80% of the match. In fact, Pakistan were overpowered completely by the Indian bowlers only in the death overs. Hence, it had also the components that should be in a competitive game if T20.