Harbhajan Singh stars for India

Today, 4th ODI match of the Asia Cup was played between India & Pakistan. This was supposed to be a must win match for Pakistan to get into finals. India had already won a match against Bangladesh, a win against Pakistan will make them to enter finals undoubtedly without considering a match against Srilankans.

Pakistan won the toss & elected to bat first. Salman Butt & Imran Butt were the openers for Pakistan. A 71 run partnership between these two had put Pakistan into an good position. Farhat was out & Shoaib Malik came to bat. Again there was a good partnership of 73 runs, Pakistan at this point of time looked very strong. Once Shoaib Malik & Salman Butt got out, Pakistan started to loose wickets in regular intervals. There was no good partnerships built further. Pakistan lost all 10 wickets in 49.3 overs scoring 267 runs.

Chasing 267 runs was a big challenge for India, as the highest run chase in this ground was just 212 runs so far. As usual, Gautam Gambhir & Virender Sehwag opened the innings for India. Virender Sehwag did not perform well today with both bat & ball. He departed scoring only 11 runs from 32 deliveries. Gautam Gambhir & MS Dhoni had put a good partnership of 98 runs which helped India to go in a positive track. After the fall of Gautam Gambhir, 3 more wickets fell in quick intervals. Suresh Raina was the hope for India when other top order batsmen failed to stay till the end. But things changed when India needed 7 runs from 6 deliveries. Suresh Raina got run out in the very first delivery of the 50th over. Praveen Kumar came to bat accompanying Harbhajan Singh, he scored 3 runs from 2 deliveries which was much needed at this time. Finally everything was on Bhajji when India needed 3 runs from 2 deliveries. Voila !! Bhajji made it, he hit the ball for a six. What a nail biting match was it. India won the match by3 wickets. Now, Pakistan & Bangladesh are out of Finals in Asia Cup.