A solid opening stand, Rohit Sharma’s second century of the tournament and a captain’s knock from Virat Kohli ensured India posted a solid 336/5 against Pakistan at Manchester.
Despite fears of rain before the game, the clouds cleared out just in time for the toss and allowed for a full 50-over Indian innings to be played out.
The Men in Blue were fielding a new opening pair of KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma – with Shikhar Dhawan sitting out due to an injury – but there were no opening jitters as the two saw off the initial spell of Mohammad Amir with complete ease and then continued to score at a quick-fire pace.
The Indian vice-captain was lucky to survive a massive run out chance in the 11th over when Shadab Khan threw the ball at the wrong end with Rohit miles outside his crease. He capitalised on that lifeline by smashing a four and a six off consecutive deliveries in the next over to bring up his half century. At the other end, KL Rahul too reached the personal milestone off a six off Shoaib Malik.
The pair eventually added 136 runs, in the process scoring India’s highest opening partnership against Pakistan in a World Cup match. The record had earlier been owned for the last 23 years by Sachin Tendulkar and Navjot Singh Sidhu who had put together 90 runs during the 1996 World Cup in Bengaluru.
Rohit and Rahul broke the record in the 16th over with Rohit Sharma scoring the runs.
Rohit Sharma in fact threatened to score 150 before being caught 10 runs short.
Pakistan then pegged back the run-rate as Amir had Hardik Pandya (26) caught on the long-on boundary by Babar Azam and MS Dhoni (1) caught behind and walking after an extravagant swipe.
Virat Kohli though switched gears and in his innings of 77 became the third Indian batsman to pass 11,000 in one-day international cricket, doing so in his 222nd innings that also made him the fastest to reach the milestone.
Rain finally made an appearance in Manchester during the 47th over right after Vijay Shankar had just been given out by the on-field umpires. India however asked for a review and the decision was overturned.
Immediately after play resumed, Mohammad Amir packed off the Indian skipper on 77 though the wicket was much talked-about as Virat Kohli thought he was caught-behind but replays later showed that his bat had not made connection with the ball at all.
India eventually posted 336/5, the highest score by any team against Pakistan in a World Cup match. This in fact is also the highest ODI total in Manchester. No team has scored more than 329 batting second to win a World Cup game.
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