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India wins battle of nerves against Pak

And Friday was no different with the Men in Blue pulling off a rather lop-sided seven-wicket victory to ensure Pakistan’s jinx of never beating India in a World Cup match remains intact even after the two sides’ 10th encounter, sixth in 50 overs, fourth in T20, in the opening Super 10 fixture of the ICC World Twenty20 at Shere Bangla National Stadium.

Interestingly, the last World T20 clash between the arch-rivals played at Colombo on 12 September 2012 saw Pakistan post a modest 128 after put into bat. On Friday, after MS Dhoni again called correctly, Pakistan fared tad better, putting up 130/7 in the allotted 20 overs. While India romped home with three overs and two wickets to spare then, they lost just one more wicket and played nine more deliveries to cruise home without breaking much sweat.

Call it co-incidence, that win’s protagonist Virat Kohli again played the lead role on Friday’s chase, remaining unbeaten on 36 while Suresh Raina (35*) played the perfect foil.

The victory came as a sweet revenge too after India went down meekly to the traditional foes in the recently concluded Asia Cup.

After three quite overs, Rohit Sharma (24) opened up clearing the field for a four and a six off successive Junaid Khan deliveries while Shikhar Dhawan (30) too cut lose after few initial hiccups, greeting the dangerous Saeed Ajmal with three fours in his first over. Dhawan was finally done in by a short ball from Gul while Ajmal turned one sharply to get rid of Rohit soon after. Though India received a jolt with Bilawal Bhatti skidding one in to clean up Yuvraj Singh (1) in the next over, Virat and Raina held their cool to steer the team home without further hiccups.

Earlier, Dhoni’s decision to field three spinners, Amit Mishra, Ravindra Jadeja and R Ashwin, on a slow track stood vindicated with the trio scalping three wickets for just 63 runs in 12 overs. Mishra (2/22), Jadeja (1/18) and Ashwin (0/23) all got a bit of help from the track. While Jadeja bowled stump to stump, Mishra too was bang on target with his flighted leg breaks.
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