Adelaide:
India outclassed Pakistan by 76 runs in its opening Cricket World cup match at Adelaide. India won its first international after close to three months in this Australian summer. A win against Pakistan has ensured unlikely slip in the league stages. The first step was to defend the trophy was glorious.
Riding on the century of star batsman Virat Kohli, India piled up mammoth 300 losing seven wickets against Pakistan in its opening match at Adelaide. Electing to bat first, India had a brisk start but lost Rohit early. The innings was controlled by Kohli and Dhawan before Sohail Khan checked the flow.
Dhawan, got into act with Kohli to pile up a 129-run second-wicket partnership to set the stage for a huge score. Raina, Kohli, Dhawan were major architects of the India innings. Young fast bowler Sohail Khan took 5 wickets to the check the score, which was going above 320 at one point.
India wobbled in the last five overs, losing five wickets for only 27 runs, which was a setback. Much debated Mohammad Irfan was ineffaceable against Kohli-Dhawan partnership.
En route his 22nd ODI century, Kohli joined Sourav Ganguly as the second-highest century maker for India in ODIs with only Sachin Tendulkar (49) ahead of him. But he did eclipse Tendulkar's highest individual score (98) by an Indian against Pakistan in any World Cup game.
Along with Shikhar Dhawan (73) and Suresh Raina (74), the trio pulverised a Pakistan bowling attack, which ran out of ideas by the 20th over itself.
It was patient yet authoritative knock from Kohli, where he built his innings brick-by-brick rather than playing scintillating shots. It wasn't a flurry of boundaries but liberal sprinklings of ones and twos with the boundaries interspersed in-between.
The testimony to his patience was his first 50 came off 60 balls while the second 50 took as many 59 deliveries.
(With PTI inputs)
