IND vs PAK T20 World Cup: Mohsin Naqvi leaves stadium before finish as India smash Pakistan to enter Super 8s

IND vs PAK T20 World Cup LIVE Score: Follow India vs Pakistan Updates.

IND vs PAK T20 World Cup: Game over! India have beaten Pakistan comprehensively by 61 runs, to continue their domination in the T20 World Cups. With the win, India became the first team to qualify for the Super 8 stage. Chasing 176 to win, Pakistan's innings never quite took off and ended at 114 all out in 18 overs. Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, Axar Patel and Varun Chakaravarthy picked up two wickets each.

The latest from the venue is that PCB chief Mohsin Naqvi left the Premadasa Stadium even before Pakistan could be put out of their misery. Usman Khan was the only Pakistan who looked threatening, but closing in on a half-century, he too fell six short of the milestone, getting out stumped to give Axar his second wicket of the innings. Mohammad Nawaz got himself an early boundary, but he holed out in the deep.

Shadab Khan tried to get his team out of the rut, but things continued to go from bad to worse for Pakistan, who lost 4 wickets inside the Powerplay and with technically nothing on the board. They were all over the place. Salman Ali Agha got himself a boundary, but the Pakistan captain fell the very next ball to leave Pakistan reeling at 13/3.

Talk about a dream start. Hardik Pandya, who did not deliver with the bat, has done so with the bat, dismissing Sahibzada Farhan for a duck in the first over. In the next over, Saim Ayub top-edged Jasprit Bumrah for a six before the ‘best pacer in the world’ landed a perfect yorker to wave Ayub goodbye.

Pakistan needed to chase down 176 after India posted a record-highest total of 175/7 in India-Pakistan T20 World Cup matches. Ishan Kishan set the tone with a smoking 77-run knock off just 40 balls before sizeable contributions from Suryakumar Yadav, Tilak Varma and Rinku Singh in the end ensured India put up a challenging score on the board.

India were motoring along well, with a solid partnership brewing between Suryakumar and Tilak Varma. However, once Gautam Gambhir had a pretty strong animated chat with the two batters, right after the break, India lost two wickets in two balls, losing Tilak and the dangerous Hardik Pandya, for a first-ball duck.

Despite wickets falling, India continue to score at a 9-10 runs per over. Pakistan’s fielding error didn’t help their cause, with Shadab Khan gifting Suryakumar an easy four and another fielder failing to spot the ball. Usman Tariq, the much-talked-about spinner, finished with 4/24.

Ishan Kishan’s fine innings ended at 77, but not before he cracked the code for India and spiked the run-rate at almost 10 an over. Ishan was in some marauding form. The left-handed opener blasted a 27-ball fifty to calm Indian nerves after a wicket in the first over. This is his second consecutive half-century, following the 61-run blitz against Namibia three nights ago. Ishan took boundaries off Shaheen, Saim Ayub and Abrar Ahmed. The Men in Blue lost Abhishek Sharma without scoring, but India scored at a decent rate, even as Pakistan tried to slow them down by introducing different spinners.

Playing XIs

India Playing XI: Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan(w), Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav(c), Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Rinku Singh, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah

Pakistan Playing XI: Saim Ayub, Sahibzada Farhan, Salman Agha(c), Babar Azam, Mohammad Nawaz, Usman Khan(w), Shadab Khan, Faheem Ashraf, Shaheen Afridi, Abrar Ahmed, Usman Tariq

India vs Pakistan head-to-head record

India has dominated Pakistan in the T20 World Cups, winning 7 games and losing just one in 2021. Overall, the head-to-head matches between India and Pakistan in T20Is are as follows.

Matches: 16

India won: 12

Pakistan won: 3

Tied: 1

India vs Pakistan T20I stats

Most runs: Virat Kohli with 492 runs

Most wickets: Hardik Pandya with 15 wickets

India vs Pakistan Live Streaming

The India vs Pakistan T20 World Cup match will be live-streamed on Hotstar, and it can also be viewed on TV on the Star Sports network

Some key pointers related to tonight’s India vs Pakistan match

- India has won the last five T20I matches against Pakistan

- The last time India lost was in September 2022

- This is the first time since 2007 that an India vs Pakistan T20 World Cup match won’t feature either Rohit Sharma or Virat Kohli

- The winner of tonight’s match will most likely end Group A as its top-ranked team

- And lastly, rain is expected to hamper this match