Saturday will be the decidind day as there will now be a battle of the hosts, and while Sri Lanka might have been surprised by the strength of India's bowling effort, they would also have taken note of lack in batting performance.
In the end, India's 260 for 9 was enough as their bowlers did marvellous job, but had Pakistan not taken a toll of pressure on themselves, the target could have been easily achievable. Sachin Tendulkar was dropped four times in his 85, while Wahab Riaz was extremely impressive in collecting 5 wickets.
Ashish Nehra was chosen over R Ashwin, which indeed proved to be a good decision in the end as the Indian bowlers built the pressure and gave Pakistan's batsmen little to attack after they made a promising start and reached 70 for 1.No extra was given by the Indians until the 37th over and it was good to see every bowler (Munaf Patel, Nehra, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan and Zaheer) picking 2 wickets each during the match.
But the most important breakthrough came when Harbhajan Singh bowled Umar Akmal for 29. Shahid Afridi also fell to Harbhajan, leaving Misbah-ul-Haq to steer the chase. He found it difficult to lift his tempo and was the last man out, caught on the boundary for 56 in the final over.
Pakistan were all out for 231 runs in 49.5 overs to leave India deserved winners before a boisterous crowd that included power personalities such as Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, union ministers, glamour from Bollywood besides Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Yousuf Raza Gilani who were present when the final ball was bowled.
It was enough, but now Indian batsmen will need to improve if they want to lift the trophy on Saturday. For now, they can dream of their first World Cup in 28 years.
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