India secured a dominant victory over Pakistan at the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 (CWC23), further extending their remarkable track record against their arch-rivals throughout the tournament’s history.
Jasprit Bumrah, the star of the match, earned the well-deserved title of Player of the Match for his game-changing performance with the ball. Bumrah’s bowling wizardry yielded a remarkable 2/19 in seven overs. Subsequently, Rohit Sharma and Shreyas Iyer played pivotal roles, both achieving half-centuries, leading their team to victory with a commanding 19.3 overs remaining.
The head-to-head statistics between India and Pakistan in ICC Men’s Cricket World Cups are significantly lopsided, marking their eighth encounter in the tournament, with India triumphing in all eight of them.
Remarkably, only one other team boasts such dominance in the tournament’s history, and that’s Pakistan, holding an impressive record against Sri Lanka.
India’s success is underscored by the fact that they have only failed to win four out of their last 29 Cricket World Cup games, surpassing the records of all other cricketing nations.
Their next challenge lies in maintaining this exceptional track record as they progress to the semi-final stage, where two of their previous defeats occurred, against Australia in 2015 and New Zealand in 2019.
Pakistan’s innings unraveled as they suffered the ignominy of eight wickets falling for a mere 36 runs, marking their worst collapse at a World Cup and the third-worst in One Day Internationals.
A glimmer of hope for Pakistan is that their previous worst World Cup collapse, involving seven or more wickets, took place against England in the 1992 tournament, which Pakistan ultimately won.
The disappointment surrounding Pakistan’s collapse is exacerbated by their strong start against India’s opening bowlers. The lone wicket to fall during the first powerplay was India’s 43rd ODI wicket within the initial ten overs this calendar year, surpassing all other full-member sides.
Rohit Sharma, with his formidable ODI record, continued to shine. The Indian captain’s explosive innings witnessed him blasting six sixes, elevating his total to 302 ODI sixes – a feat surpassed only by Shahid Afridi and Chris Gayle in the format.
Amongst white-ball World Cups, only Chris Gayle has struck more maximums than Rohit, whose recent performance pushed him ahead of AB de Villiers in this specific category.
Babar Azam’s noteworthy half-century in the first innings marked his maiden ODI fifty against India, representing his eighth ODI encounter with India but the first on Indian soil.
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