India’s Gold Medal rush continues at the Asian Games in Japan as it wins its 19th gold medal. The latest gold came in Cricket, as India defeated Pakistan by 19 runs.
India won the toss and elected to bat and got off to an explosive start. Young teenage sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi scored just 15 runs but that was punctuated with two sixes. The other Indian opener Abhishek Sharma really set the stage alight with an explosive 61 off just 28 balls. Their explosive start allowed the middle-order batsmen to just knock the ball around and stabilise the innings after their dismissals.
Then the finishing kick came from Ishan Kishan and Shivam Dube, who smashed the Pakistani bowlers to all parts, with Kishan scoring 51 off 22 balls and Dube scoring 27 off 14 balls. Their partnership yielded 62 runs in just 30 balls.
In response, Pakistan started positively, but then lost 3 wickets quickly, the 87-run 4th-wicket partnership between Hasan Nawaz and Saim Ayub brought Pakistan back into the match, with Nawaz leading the way. Notably, Hasan Nawaz was dropped when he was at 4 by Vaibhav Sooryavanshi as both Sooryavanshi and Ravi Bishnoi went for the catch.
Hasan Nawaz kept going after Ayub’s dismissal off Dube and put on another important partnership with Abdul Samad. However, that didn’t turn out to be enough as Samad holed out for 8 to Tilak Verma off Washington Sundar’s bowling.
At the end, despite Hasan Nawaz’s heroics, Pakistan couldn’t get past the line, and India won the Gold Medal. The Tilak Varma and Shivam Dube partnership eventually came to India’s rescue in the end as they put the score beyond Pakistan’s reach.
This is the latest in cricket matches where India have defeated Pakistan, something which has become a regular occurrence.
