India - 5, Pakistan - 0

India made to the finals of the World Cup 2011 with a resounding victory over their arch-rivals Pakistan. The splendid victory gives India a chance to become the first host nation to win the World Cup when the Men in Blue take on SL at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai on this Saturday. The win is also indicative of the complete dominance that India has enjoyed over Pakistan in all the World Cup matches and and hence the title of this article.

Toss: India won the toss and rightfully decided to bat first. In a pressure game like a WC semi-final, batting first and letting the opposition chase the runs is always the better of the two options and Dhoni did precisely that. However, Dhoni also announced that Ashwin was dropped and replaced by Ashish Nehra, something that nobody (including the likes of Sidhu and Ian Chappell in the studio and me) could understand. On the other hand, it was not completely shocking considering the fact that the pitch at PCA stadium Mohali has always favored fast bowlers. The only point was if it was worth playing Nehra at the cost of Ashwin. Pakistan, on the other hand, went unchanged which meant that there was no game for Akhtar.

Indian innings:

Nothing calms you more than to see Sachin and Sehwag go and open the innings for you. These two are phenomenal batsmen and the duo has demolished the best bowling attacks in the world. Gul had made his intentions clear of targetting the Indian top order, but instead it was him who was in the firing line. Sehwag unleashed a barrage of strokes in the third over as Gul was hit for 5 boundaries and 21 came off that over. Sehwag hit a few more before he became Wahab Riaz's first victim in the sixth over (48/1 in 6th over). However, Sehwag played quite a useful cameo of 38 and it gave India the early momentum. Gambhir joined Sachin but the fall of Sehwag did put a brake on the scoring rate. However, none of the pacers that Afridi employed looked to take a wicket and he had to turn to his spinners as early as 9th over. Saeed Ajmal was the one to start the spin and immediately made some sort of impact in his second over. Sachin was adjudged LBW by the umpire Ian Gould, but survived courtesy of the UDRS. Off the very next ball, he survived a close stumping call and that was perhaps the beginning of an innings that not many people will associate with Sachin. There was more spin on offer as Afridi got himself in, then brought Hafeez and the three of them (including Ajmal) slowed down the scoring considerably. Gambhir played quite well (he is easily one of the best players of spin in the world at the moment) while Sachin continued to benefit from dropped chances. Things were pretty fine for India until a moment of adrenaline rush caused Gambhir to charge down the track to Hafeez only to be stumped (116/2 in 19th over). That brought Virat Kohli to the crease and he looked quite normal at the crease but India's scoring rate continued to dip. It was not really an alarm at that stage because the plan must have been to consolidate in the middle overs and then attack at the end. What caused alarm to me was the fact that the ball was turning quite a bit and India had opted for 3 seamers. Anyways, Afridi gave the older ball to Wahab Riaz in an attempt to see if he could get some reverse swing, and boy, he found it quite appreciably. He got rid of Kohli and the man-in-form Yuvraj Singh of successive deliveries, and from a position of strength, India suddenly were looking quite uncomfortable as the score read 141/4. Dhoni came in and negated the hatrick, but what followed thereafter was a very slow recovery from India. The boundaries completely dried up while bowlers like Hafeez were very hard to score off (he ended with figures of 10-0-34-1, quite an achievement for an allrounder, if he one). There were few comic moments in between though, as Sachin was dropped repeatedly. Sachin eventually fell to Ajmal, the man who started it all, and was caught by Afridi (it was off Afridi's bowling that Sachin was dropped thrice, the score 187-5 at the end of 37 overs). Entered Suresh Raina, and boy, has not he made an impact in the limited opportunities that he has got. Raina and Dhoni batted quite slowly, and it was not very pleasing to see the always dipping scoring rate, but at least, there was no collapse. Dhoni got out to Wahab Riaz in 42nd over (205/6) which meant that Raina had to grind out with the tail to take India somewhere close to 250. Raina did that very well in the company of the tail, and for a change the batting PP was quite fruitful for India as 43 runs came off it for the loss of only Harbhajan's wicket. Umar Gul could not fulfill his desires of ripping through the Indian top order, instead he got repeatedly hammered even by the lower Indian order and ended up with rather ugly figures of 8-0-69-0. India did well to reach 260, considering the fact that it looked that India may not even bat their entire quota of overs (because of the collapses that India is so strongly associated with in this World Cup). But crossing 250 and being able to bat out the entire innings did give some psychological boost to the team. However, the general sentiment was that India had frittered away the early advantage of a rapid start and ended atleast 20-30 runs short. For Pakistan, Wahab Riaz was the pick of bowlers with a 5 wicket haul and that is no mean achievement by any measures. The spinners did well too but Afridi could not get a wicket today and ended his WC campaign with 21 wickets which is quite impressive.

Pakistan innings:

Zaheer Khan opened the bowling for India while for Pakistan it was the duo of Kamran Akmal and Mohd Hafeez who came to open. Pakistan started their chase in an emphatic manner as Kamran Akmal sent the first ball of the innings to the boundary and followed it with another one of the last ball of the same over. Nehra was the one who shared the new ball with Zaheer and bowled a decent line and length. However, there was no swing on offer and runs came at a decent pace initially with both the openers looking comfortable. Zaheer was replaced by Munaf in the fifth over and the plan looked to give Zaheer a bit of breather and then bring him on from the other end. Nehra and Munaf bowled a couple of steady overs before Zaheer actually returned from the same end in the 9th over and got the vital wicket of Kamran Akmal (44/1 in 9 overs). In came the little known Asad Shafiq to give company to Hafeez. Dhoni also introduced Harbhajan quite early in the 11th over and obviously he was looking for wickets. Bhajji did not get one but Munaf did get one when Hafeez (who had played quite well until then) tried to play a dilscoop only to get a faint edge to Dhoni (70/2 in 16th over). It was at this point that India made a comeback as they brought down the run rate and had picked a couple of pickets as well. Younis Khan joined Asad but the none of them really got going. Dhoni also brought Yuvi in the attack to see if he could get some turn and cause problems for Pakistan. He started by bowling a bit short but soon switched to a fuller length and the turn was there to see. Yuvi finally got one in his 3rd over when he had Asad bowled off an arm ball that came straight into the right hander and had the middle stump uprooted. That brought Misbah-ul-Haq to the crease and together with Younis Khan, it was the most experienced pair in the Pakistani batting line up. However, Younis had a rather indifferent WC and his misery finally ended when he was caught by Raina in the covers off Yuvraj (106/4 in 26 overs). He made a very modest 13 off 32 balls and never looked comfortable. The dismissal of Younis brought the junior Akmal to the crease and with his arrival began the tiny little period when Pakistan looked really serious about the run chase. Akmal collects his runs very quickly and his never shy of playing the big shots. This was evident when he started to hit Yuvi (something that not many have tried in this tournament) and a couple of sixes came in successive overs. It was probably the only time when Pakistan posed a real challenge with a combination of youth and experience at the crease. However, Bhajji had the better of Akmal when he had Akmal bowled off a quicker one (142/5 in 34 overs) and that was a huge blow. Akmal was the one who was playing all the shorts while Misbah was even struggling to rotate the strike. Afridi gave Razaaq a promotion in the batting order as he joined Misbah. However, his stay was again short lived as he was bowled by a beautiful leg-cutter from Munaf Patel (reminiscent of the way Prasad used to trouble right handers) and Pakistan slumped further (150/6 in37 overs). Afridi finally made way to the crease, and while this may suggest the might of a batting line up when you have someone like Afridi coming as low as #8, it actually is quite the opposite. People like Razzaq and Afridi have ceased to be the batsmen that they once were, and hence they essentially come to bat at positions that are reserved for bowlers. Afridi looked to set a few things right with his batting today (Rameez Raja was surely impressed when he said that Afridi looks very good when he had made 17 off just 14 balls :) ). However, Afridi was bogged down by the pressure as the required run rate kept climbing and Misbah kept batting in a rather bizarre manner. He was eventually out for 19 caught by Sehwag off Bhajji in an attempt to score some very quick runs. After that it was only a question of finishing it off, though in a game as vital as this, Dhoni just could not take anything for granted. It was only after Afridi had departed that Misbah came to senses and started to hit a few boundaries. However, it was too late by then and Pakistan eventually folded for 231 in the last over. Misbah in the company of the last three batsmen added 47 runs and also got to his individual half century but it was way too late. The last few overs saw some excellent display of death bowling by Nehra and Munaf though Zaheer was a bit rusty. India eventually won by 29 runs and this win complements the quartet of the earlier WC wins- Sydney(1992), Bangalore(1996), Old Trafford(1999) and Centurion(2003).

This win was set up by the Indian bowlers who bowled their hearts out and made sure that this victory was achieved quite comfortably. All the 5 bowlers who were employed by Dhoni took 2 wickets each and it would be hard to say whose 2 were the most important in the context of the game. However, the Indian bowling unit clicked in unison and answered all the critics who had labelled India as the team with the weakest bowling attack. Two successive impressive bowling performances (restricting Aussies to 260 and successfully defending 260 against Pakistan) tell an altogether different story.

Inspite of all the media hype, the match was played in a very cordial manner and there was not even a single on field incident that could be termed ugly. Pakistan did well to reach the semis considering that they do not play any cricket at home, their team is always mired with controversies but even as a neutral observer, I would say that they were no match for India. They did match India in the bowling department (or even have better bowling resources) but they come noway near to India in batting. They have no specialist openers (Hafeez, I heard throws his wicket after a lovely 30-40 while Akmal is a different case), no specialist middle order batsmen (Younis was not just in form while Misbah was painfully slow, Umar Akmal starts very positively but rarely converts his starts to big ones), no real finishers (Afridi's batting woes do not seem to end and Razaq is more like the Indian equivalent of Ravinder Jadeja). Their fielding is horrible too and that only allowed India to post 260. They also need to find a proper wicket-keeper and a specialist opener rather than persist with someone like Kamran Akmal who is a compromise solution but still a very bad keeper. But still congratulations to the Pakistan team for the way they performed and best wishes to Shoaib Akhtar for his future.

India take on SL in the final on Saturday and this does not get any bigger (or more bore ?) than this. The two teams have faced each other on so many occasions in the past couple of years. Revenge is the first thing that comes to my mind (of the 1996 semi-final). Hope to see Dhoni with the trophy on the coming Saturday.

Good luck to the Men in Blue

Vande Matram !!!

Jai Hind !!!

Score card (courtery: Cricinfo)