Virat's brilliant knock of unbeaten 82 gives a big Diwali gift to India.

Virat's brilliant knock of unbeaten 82 gives a big Diwali gift to India.

Well, all the wait gets over. Finally, the match day has arrived. The fear of Rain went away and the fans who have waited long for this clash have brought their own ray of light to the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Australia on Sunday.

After the Asia Cup, all the cricketing fans across the globe wanted to witness again a high-voltage match between India and Pakistan. 
Winning the toss, skipper Rohit Sharma chose to bowl first keeping the overcast condition in the mind at Melbourne Cricket Ground. The Pakistani openers Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan went out early to the Indian pacer Arshdeep Singh in the powerplay. It was an excellent opening spell by India's bowlers. Babar went without scoring and Mohammad Rizwan scored 4 in 12 balls. Swinging deliveries from both ends were creating trouble for the Pakistani batters in the middle. 
After then Iftikhar Ahmed came to the middle taking the responsibility on his back. His partnership with Masood was going well and suddenly he got out to plumb delivery by Mohammad Shami. Iftikhar Ahmed played a cameo of 51 runs from 32 balls. They could not carry the momentum long as they kept losing their wickets at regular intervals. They lost 3 quick wickets in just 7 runs.
Shan Masood scored a good half-century. During the tense situation, he showed good temperament by holding his ground from the other end making a small valuable partnership with Shaheen Shah Afridi. After losing early wickets the way they recovered themselves was commendable. They scored 99 runs in their last 10 overs. Meanwhile, Arshdeep Singh and Hardik Pandya were the Standout bowlers for India taking three crucial wickets each and restricting them to a defendable total of 159. They gave India a decent score of 160 to chase.
Coming down to chase, India loses 3 early wickets in the power play. The Pakistani bowlers didn't give any space to score runs keeping a tight length. During the 6th over miscommunication between Virat Kohli and Axal Patel costs India another wicket. Axar Patel gets run out by Babar Azam on 2. After the dismissal, Hardik Pandya comes to the crease joining Virat on the other side. After 10 India was 45\4. They needed 115 runs more to win in the remaining 10. India now needed a strong partnership to get them closer to the total. Both the batsmen put an outstanding partnership of 113 runs inching near victory. Hardik scores 40, and later Virat Kohli and Ashwin finish things off in style in the last over giving India a terrific win over Pakistan. India wins by 4 wickets. Virat Kohli won the Man of the match for his brilliant knock of 82* runs.

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