They were led home by a scintillating and wristily powerful innings of 80 from 53 deliveries by the makeshift opener Rohit Sharma, who struck nine fours as well as the only two sixes of the match. He put on 140 for the first wicket with Gautam Gambhir as the pair chased down Pakistan's 158, in a rematch of the final of the inaugural tournament in 2007, also won by India.
The India captain, MS Dhoni, said: "It was one of our best performances ever, though it was only a warm-up game. It was a brilliant performance from the whole team and the noise here was amazing." Sharma, who scored 404 runs in the IPL, opened only because of Virender Sehwag's shoulder injury. "He was very keen to open and he's got the time and the talent to play the quick bowlers," Dhoni said.
When east met east in south London last night it was not always a culturally enlightening experience. "You're not singing any more," India's supporters taunted Pakistan's as their side's batsmen got on top of the rather helpless bowlers. They followed up with "Are you Scotland in disguise?"
It might have been Millwall down the road. We also had a Mexican wave. But the atmosphere was terrific and the banter between the crowds generally good-natured – unlike at Millwall.
Rather bravely, in view of the extreme levels of security and the highly charged nature of the evening, the International Cricket Council designated this as a "Catch the Spirit" match, in memory of those killed or injured during the attack on the Sri Lanka team and officials in Lahore on 3 March.
When Pakistan batted, they faltered badly when they lost three wickets with the score on 45 but they recovered well in the second half of the innings as India experimented with seven different bowlers.
Shahzaib Hasan had his off-stump knocked back by Praveen Kumar with the fifth ball of the first over and his opening partner, Ahmed Shehzad, had scored only five when he was badly dropped by Harbhajan Singh at midwicket.
Their innings seized up in the fifth over when they lost two wickets and failed to score a run. First Kamran Akmal, backing up, was brilliantly run out by Suresh Raina, diving in from the covers. Then Ahmed had a smite and sent the ball straight up in the air.
When Shahid Afridi was dismissed off the first ball of the sixth over, caught behind off Irfan Pathan as he attempted to smear the ball through the off-side, Pakistan were in deep trouble at 45 for four. Their innings was restored by two partnerships. First the captain Younus Khan, who scored a run-a-ball 32, put on 50 from 45 balls with the feisty Misbah-ul-Haq.
Younus departed, losing his dignity as well as his wicket when he went down the wicket to reverse sweep Harbhajan Singh, toppled over and was smartly stumped. But Misbah, whose 37 came from 30 deliveries with four fours, continued strongly and, with the even more violent and clean-hitting Yasir Arafat (25 off 16), added 45 from 27 balls in an unbroken seventh- wicket stand.
Read From Source Site:guardian.co.uk
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