Hardik Pandya’s insane reaction: India has successfully managed to prevail over Pakistan in the World Cup in its glittering antiquity. In every single World Cup whenever these two arch-rivals have clashed, no matter how favourable the game has looked for Pakistan, India has successfully come out trumps.
The latest collision in ICC World Cup for these two teams happened in 2019 when India once again came out victorious in a rain-dampened match.
India won the toss and decided to bat first. Rahul and Sharma were off to a blinder that propelled India to a flying start. However, once Rahul was removed, the captain took over the mantle and played a brilliant knock alongside Rohit Sharma, destroying Pakistan.
The duo stitched together 98 runs before Rohit Sharma holed out to Wahab Riaz for a blistering 140 from just 113 balls. Despite the dismissal of Sharma slowing down proceedings for India, it didn’t really stem their belligerence at a significant level and India tottered up a staggering total of 336 for 5 from 50 overs.
Pakistan suffered an early tumble when Vijay Shankar claimed the precious scalp of ImadWasim but was successful in stabilizing the ship, thanks to a decent partnership between Fakhar Zaman and Babar Azam. However, the duo took too much time and what succeeded from Pakistan was even slower.
Hardik Pandya’s stinging expression at Sarfaraz will make you laugh
Their captain, Sarfaraz Ahmed and Mohammad Hafeez took all the time in the world to garner what one would call a paltry effort at the face of an impending cataclysm.
As Pakistan was reeling at 132 for the loss of 5, Imad and Sarfaraz were in the midst of a morass so deep where they were torn between the likes of saving the blushes of humiliation and going for the charge that somewhat looked unachievable.
This is where Hardik Pandya had a good dig of bodily sarcasm against the Pakistani skipper, Sarfaraz who kept on struggling to score in the first 10 balls, started becoming restless.
He wanted to take out Hardik Pandya for a biggie. In the process when he danced down the pitch to hammer Pandya for a strike, the Indian all-rounder surprised him with a nasty bouncer that left him flabbergasted.
The resultant reaction from Pandya was sheer gold as if he meant to say that what on earth was Sarfaraz thinking while prancing down the pitch. He had a devilish smirk on his face that was underpinned by the approval of Virat Kohli.
Pakistan couldn’t conjure the necessary vim and vigour to upstage the Indian supremacy in the World Cup and they fell short by 89 runs when the game was called off and the winner was adjudged by Duckworth Lewis method.
Sarfaraz could only manage 12 runs from 30 balls at the end of which he was given a befitting return to the pavilion by Vijay Shankar who kissed his timbre with a peach.
