A dominant display with ball and bat from India saw them crush Pakistan by 7 wickets in their third match of the ICC World Cup 2023 at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Saturday.
Chasing a paltry 192 for victory, India raced to the target thanks to captain Rohit Sharma and Shreyas Iyer's half-centuries at the biggest cricket stadium in the world.
Rohit top-scored with 86 off 63 balls while Iyer remained unbeaten on xx as India registered their third successive win in the tournament.
The Men in Blue also took their head-to-head record against Pakistan at ODI World Cups to 8-0 after this triumph.
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Bowlers architect Indian victory
But the match was set up by the Indian bowlers as they bowled out Pakistan for 191, their second lowest score against the neighbours in ODI World Cup history.
The bowlers backed up Rohit's decision to bowl first after winning the toss as they kept the pressure on Pakistan and triggered a collapse from 155 for 2 to 191 all out.
Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav grabbed a couple of wickets each to round off a near-perfect performance with the ball for the home team.
Bumrah (2/19 in 7 overs), Siraj (2/50 in 8 overs), Kuldeep (2/35 in 10 overs), Hardik Pandya (2/34 in 6 overs) and Ravindra Jadeja (2/35 in 9.5 overs) were relentless in their pursuit of choking the opposition into submission.
Rohit's take on India's win
"The bowlers were the ones today as well who set the game up for us. I don't think it was a 190 pitch. At one stage we were looking at 280.
"The way they showed grit says a lot. That is something we pride ourselves in. Whoever gets the ball does the job," Rohit said after the match.
"All in all, it's looking good. Want to keep my fingers crossed. Don't want to get too excited. Don't want to get too low as well. Want to stay balanced. Keep calm and keep moving forward. Every opposition we come up against are all quality. You have to play well on that particular day, and that's what we're looking at," he added.
India will take on Bangladesh in their next match of the tournament on October 19 while Pakistan will face five-time champions Australia on Oct 20.
