Dubai: Virat Kohli showcased his penchant to lord over Pakistan in ICC tournaments once more as the batting icon’s glittering unbeaten 100 helped India claim an authoritative six-wicket win over their traditional rivals and all but seal a semifinal spot in the Champions Trophy here on Sunday.
The victory should be enough for India, who are now on top of Group A with four points, to make the last four. However, Pakistan are staring at early elimination from the eight-team event after their second successive loss.
Chasing a tricky 242, India rode on Kohli’s 51st ODI ton, Shreyas Iyer’s classy 67-ball 56 and Shubman Gill’s brilliant start of 46 off 52 balls to overhaul the target with more than seven overs to spare.
Kohli rebelled against his own modest recent form and a dangerous opposition to peel off a memorable knock that took 111 balls and was punctuated with seven fours.
Pakistan, on the other hand, are on their way out of the tournament of which they are the hosts.
Once again, they ran into their old nemesis — Kohli. The 36-year-old had several demons of his own to tame — a lean run, recurring form of dismissals and struggles against spin.
But he slayed each one of them, in a manner befitting a batter who also became the quickest to 14,000 ODI runs during the course of the knock.
Pakistan might have hoped to hustle him a bit through pacers Shaheen Shah Afridi and Haris Rauf.
But Kohli drove them on the up with elan or pulled them with audacity as Pakistan’s premier pacers transformed into dejected figures after the early high of Afridi castling Rohit Sharma (20 off 15 balls) with a peach of a yorker.
Perhaps, the biggest hope Pakistan harboured against Kohli would have been leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed, considering the Indian’s recent travails against England’s Adil Rashid.
Kohli did have a couple of tough moments against Ahmed but none big enough to put him in distress. He largely dealt with him in singles, cutting down risks.
But the Pakistan quicks offered him enough chances to free his arms.
At the other end, Iyer flowed with a variety of shots but a 103 metre six off spinner Salman Agha was the standout hit during his tenure, in which he assisted Kohli to raise 114 runs for the third wicket.
Iyer had to walk back to the hut after Imam-ul-Haq pulled off a stunner at covers off spinner Khushdil Shah although replays suggested that the ball might have been grounded.
But by then, India had already shut the door on Pakistan.
A large chunk of credit for this win can also be rightfully claimed by Indian bowlers, who were stunningly accurate while limiting Pakistan to 241.
That total was made possible by Saud Shakeel’s polished fifty and Khushdil’s cameo.
Shakeel (62, 76b, 5×4) was largely untroubled and added 104 runs for the third wicket with skipper Mohammad Rizwan (46), but Pakistan never really managed to break the shackles after opting to bat.
The pitch expectedly grew slow once the match entered the middle passage, and the precision of Indian bowlers made run-making a laboured task with left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav leading the way (3/40).
There was a period in Pakistan innings when both Rizwan and Shakeel failed to find the boundary rope for 55 consecutive deliveries.
They were forced to traverse a cautious path because of the early departure of Babar Azam (23) and Imam (10).
Azam looked million dollars while playing those trademark cover drives for a few boundaries off Harshit Rana and Hardik Pandya.
But that desire to drive brought his doom as well. Pandya immediately pulled the length back after getting driven for a four and Azam’s full-throttle shot took an edge to KL Rahul’s big gloves.
Soon, Imam took off for a non-existent single and Axar Patel at mid-on just had to hit the stumps, which he did.
At 47 for two, Pakistan had their task cut out in a high-pressure match but Rizwan and Shakeel brought some stability to their innings with composed knocks.
India also had a couple of worrying points at this stage as veteran pacer Mohammed Shami and skipper Rohit Sharma had to stay off the field for some time.
Shami had to tend to his shin while Rohit looked in some discomfort primarily because of the heat here. However, both of them returned to the field to allay the concerns.
Rizwan’s adventurous shimmy down the track against Axar saw him losing the stumps, and from thereon Pakistan went on a downward spiral.
Shakeel, who played the pull with some conviction, perished to the same shot against Pandya, skying a simple catch to Axar in the deep.
Salman, Afridi and Naseem Shah fell to Kuldeep’s guile as India tightened their grip.
Khushdil (38, 39 balls) played a couple of big shots, including the first six of Pakistan innings, that helped his side reach a healthy total but Kohli’s brilliance was too high to match on the night.
