Whether it was ODI’s and now T20s; Pakistan have failed not due to lack of performance but due to their nervousness at times of the World Cup Encounters. The stage is so big that arch rivalry losses its tenacity and Pakistan faces the history to repeat itself.

Taking the example from last T20 World Cup i.e. ICC T20 WC 2007; Pakistan lost a league match to India in Bowl Out and lost an almost Clincher in the Final. They lost the bowl out due to a nervous and inexperienced bowling line up and lost the finals due to just a single misjudge shot from Misbah-ul-Haq out of nervousness.

Yesterday the history repeated itself and Pakistan lost once again to India but this time it wasn’t exactly a World Cup match, it was a practice match for the T20 World Cup, which will commence in England from Saturday. The match yesterday was a complete one sided game in all the departments of the game.

Misbah with Pak Captain Younis showed some character but it wasn’t good enough as the overall batting line-up failed and they managed a total of 158 runs for the loss of 6 wickets in their 20 overs.

On the other hand Indian bowling was impressive when it came to Ishant and Irfan where as RP Singh and Praveen Kumar was on the expensive side. But the best part came for the Indians when they came out to bat.

A promoted Rohit Sharma never looked out of place as an opener and scored a fast track 80 of 56 deliveries with 9 boundaries and a couple of sixes. It was also good to see Gautam Gambhir coming out of his form blues and scoring 52 of 47 balls with 5 fours. It seemed a cakewalk for the Indians as they reached the target in 17 overs with 9 wickets remaining; Rohit was caught of the bowling of Aameer.

So, overall a mixed bag start for the Indian Team when it comes to practice matches for the T20 World Cup – a loss against New Zealand and a clean sweep of Pakistan but as we know Sehwag and Zaheer are still to play and Yuvraj’s blade is still to shine, Team India looks the most balanced and strongest of all to retain their title of T20 World Champs.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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