The start of the Super 12 phase of the T20 World Cup has continued to produce incredible cricket.
The highlight being India against Pakistan, one of cricket’s greatest rivalries which lived up to the occasion to produce a contender for the greatest T20 match of all time.
The Melbourne Cricket Ground was the perfect venue to host an occasion of such magnitude and the 90,000 adoring fans in the ground only enhanced the drama.
India’s Virat Kohli produced arguably his greatest-ever innings of 82* to play a central part in chasing down Pakistan’s 159.
The game and the favourite fluctuated throughout, before 16 were left off the last over. During the over, a no ball, wides, three byes run off the stumps on a free hit were witnessed before the winning runs were finally hit over mid-off for India.
Earlier in the week, Ireland and Sri Lanka qualified for Group 1 with New Zealand, England, Afghanistan, and Australia.
While the Netherlands and Zimbabwe joined Group 2, consisting of Bangladesh, India, South Africa, and Pakistan.
England began their campaign with a victory against a dangerous Afghanistan side.
They bowled magnificently to restrict Afghanistan to 111, including a first men’s T20 international five-wicket haul for England from Sam Curran.
Despite the chase being hard work in the face of good bowling and a slow pitch, they won by five wickets.
Hosts Australia were stunned by New Zealand as they were beaten by 89 runs in what was the Kiwi’s first win on Australian soil since 2011.
Disappointingly, the Sydney Cricket Ground was billed to be sold out, but it was obviously not as the tournament has seen low attendances during the two weeks of competition.
The weather has contributed to this, with low temperatures and rain have dampening the local crowds largely due to the ICC hosting the tournament very early in the traditional Australian cricket season.
The nature of the tournament means there is the tantalising prospect of Australia needing to beat England on Friday morning at the MCG to stay in the competition.
Consequently, England have a chance to condemn their old enemy to an early exit in their home tournament.
As we head into another week of the World Cup, the permutations and narratives will intensify, but on the field the cricket will continue to excite and entertain.
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Featured image credit: Dietmar Rabich via Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0.
