Johannesburg, Sept 24: The nail biting Twenty 20 final between India –Pakistan on Monday was the mother of all matches in the real sense. Both the teams gave their 100% and in the end India held their nerve and annihilated Pakistan to win the World Cup. Key performers of the India-Pakistan tie included:
Irfan Pathan: The hero of India’s historic win, Irfan did India proud by his performance in the finals. Bowling exceptionally well, the Baroda pacer picked up the most important wickets at crucial junctures. Quite deservingly was declared the Man of the Match for his match winning performance. He took the significant wickets of Shoaib Malik, Shahid Afridi and Yasir Arafat.
Gautam Gambhir: Today was Gambhir’s day; he fired on all four cylinders to emerge as the most vital of all Indian batsmen. Gambhir remained on the crease till the 18th over of the match and with aplomb played the role of an anchor. He sprayed shots all over the Park to take the total to a respectable figure of 157 runs. His innings of 75 runs off just 54 balls that included 8 fours and 2 sixes helped India put up a competitive total on the board.
RP Singh: The bowler who gave India early break through against Pakistan, was RP Singh. He took 3 wickets by giving 26 runs. He took wickets of Mohammed Hafeez, Kamran Akmal and Umar Gul.
Umar Gul: Pakistani pacer Umar Gul did the damage in favour of Pakistan. He ended with remarkable bowling figures of 4/28 runs. The credit goes to him for restricting Indian batsmen to a modest total. He took wickets of all key Indian batsmen: Gautam Gambhir, Mahendra Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh.
Misbah-ul-haq: Truly could have been Man of the Match if he could pull it off at the end. Misbah-ul-haq was the one who gave Indians some very tense moments. With some superb display of fine batting under pressure, Mishab scored the highest runs among all Pakistani batsmen against India in the final of Twenty 20 World Championship. He tried till the last ball he played, to snatch the World Cup from India, in all sense a “brilliant innings”. He made 43 runs from 38 balls before becoming the last victim of Indian bowlers.
Bureau Report
