For a while it looked like this match would not happen.<\/p>\n
Pakistan, whose last win against India was at the Asia Cup in 2022, announced a boycott a week before the tournament began, only to reverse their decision at the start of this week after extensive talks.<\/p>\n
It went ahead, in front of a large crowd weighted towards Indian blue, because it is the most lucrative fixture in the world game, providing the funds upon which cricket’s ecosystem survives in its current imperfect state.<\/p>\n
How long that remains the case given India’s dominance, built from their cricketing and financial might, remains to be seen.<\/p>\n
Kishan’s assault gave India breathing space and their bowlers were ruthless, even if their fielders dropped three catches.<\/p>\n
After Pakistan’s seamers went the distance, Hardik began with a wicket maiden – dismissing right-hander Sahibzada Farhan, who skewed a pull shot high to mid-on.<\/p>\n
In the next over, the majestic Bumrah pinned left-hander Saim Ayub in front with full inswinger, before Pakistan Salman Agha holed out playing a wild slog.<\/p>\n
Even Pakistan’s biggest name, Babar Azam, was tamely bowled for five attempting a swipe to left-arm spinner Axar Patel in the fifth over, while left-handers Mohammed Nawaz and Faheem Ashraf meekly picked out fielders in the deep.<\/p>\n
After all of the build-up this was another underwhelming meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a while it looked like this match would not happen. Pakistan, whose last win against India was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-428137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}