PAKISTAN FINALLY ENDED ITS WORLD CUP HOODOO AGAINST INDIA

Mon 25 October 2021:

Jubilant cricket fans poured onto the streets across Pakistan on Sunday to hail their team’s rout of India at the T20 World Cup in Dubai.

Pakistan romped to a 10-wicket win, its first ever at the World Cup level over their South Asian neighbours.

Firecrackers, blaring car horns and bursts of gunfire rang out across Pakistani cities.

Fans danced and sang, shouting “Pakistan zindabad” (long live Pakistan). Celebratory gunfire erupted from the rooftops of houses in the capital, Islamabad, Peshawar and Karachi.

“Congratulations to the Pakistan Team & esp to Babar Azam who led from the front, as well as to the brilliant performances of Rizwan & Shaheen Afridi,” Prime Minister Imran Khan, who led Pakistan to victory in the 1992 World Cup cricket, tweeted.

Congratulations to the Pakistan Team & esp to Babar Azam who led from the front, as well as to the brilliant performances of Rizwan & Shaheen Afridi. The nation is proud of you all. pic.twitter.com/ygoOVTu37l

— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) October 24, 2021

Khan watched the game in Saudi Arabia where he is on an official visit.

Former Test cricketer and fast-bowler Shoaib Akhtar said in a video message on Twitter: “Our team has broken the myth of the Indian cricket team. We are a civilised nation and we will not say anything bad. Well done India.. you have done wonderfully well but not enough to beat the mightiest Babar and Rizwan.”

This was the team’s effort, and the early wickets were very helpful. It gave us a lot of confidence and our spinners were very good as well. We applied our plans and got the results.

We, the openers, kept it simple and built a partnership and because the wicket was getting better so we just wanted to keep batting till the end, which we did. It won’t get easier just because we beat India. We will take the confidence, but we’re taking it one match at a time, and there’s a long way to go in the tournament. We prepared well, and just kept the history out of our mind.

We needed quality practice, and warm-up matches, and even our domestic tournament and those games gave us a lot of confidence, skipper Babar Azam said.

Chasing 152 for victory, skipper Babar Azam (68) and Mohammad Rizwan (79) steered their team home with 13 balls to spare in front of 20,000 fans in Dubai and a global TV audience of hundreds of millions.

This is the real beauty of cricket! pic.twitter.com/pqQUdap9fe

— Sami Ul Hasan (@Samiburney) October 24, 2021

Left-arm fast bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi set up victory with figures of 3-31 that restricted India to 151-7 despite a valiant 57 from captain Virat Kohli.

Former captain Shahid Afridi tweeted: “Same celebration, same side, new result. Well done my boys Green heart #PAKvIND #PakistanZindabad.”

Relations between the South Asian neighbours have been tense in recent years, with the two coming to the brink of war during a military standoff following an attack on Indian security forces in the disputed region of Kashmir’s Pulwama town in February 2019.

The countries have fought two of their three wars since gaining independence in 1947 over Kashmir, which both claim in full but administer separate portions of.

Pakistan and India have not played a bilateral series since 2012. The two sides last met in 2019, a World Cup match that India won by 89 runs at Old Trafford, Manchester.

Prior to Sunday’s win, Pakistan had lost all seven 50-over World Cup matches to India while also ending up on the losing side the five times they met in T20 World Cups.

Well done Pakistan. Wonderful effort to win this in style and get off the mark.
I am sure Team India will bounce back stronger from this #INDvPAK

— Virender Sehwag (@virendersehwag) October 24, 2021

Afridi, who took three wickets, was declared man of the match.

It was Pakistan’s first ever victory by 10 wickets against any opposition in a T20 match, while India also lost by such a margin for the first time.

“This is just the start, we have confidence to build on it now,” said Babar after the opening win in the round-robin Super 12 stage.

“That will remain with us. The pressure on us wasn’t that much – we weren’t thinking of the record against India at all. We executed our plans well and the early wickets were very helpful.”

Pakistan next play New Zealand in Sharjah on Tuesday.