Twenty years ago, cricket fans across the world witnessed one of the finest matches when India faced Pakistan in the 36th match of the 2003 ICC World Cup. Played at Centurion Park, South Africa, the match is famous for Indian batting legend Sachin Tendulkar’s almost-perfect innings.
The game was part of the Pool A Group Stage matches. The top three teams from each pool played in the next part of the tournament. While the Australian cricket team was secure in its top spot, the next two qualifying berths were being fiercely contested by India, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and England. Prior to the match, Pakistan had won 2 out of its 4 matches while India had won 3 out of 4 of its matches. Every single victory mattered, especially for the Pakistani side.
On the day of the match, Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat first. Pakistan’s opener Saeed Anwar had a solid performance, scoring 101 runs off of 126 balls before finally being bowled out by Ashish Nehra. The starting 50-run partnership between Anwar and fellow opener Taufeeq Umar started the game strong. Following a decent performance from the Pakistani middle order, including a 73-run partnership between Mohammad Yousuf and Anwar along with Younis Khan's 32-run innings, the team was able to put up a score of 273 runs with 7 wickets at the end of the 50 overs.
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India had a tough target of 274 runs, having never successfully chased a target higher than 222 in the ODI format. The match started with Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag taking to the field. The two put up a 53-run partnership before Sehwag was caught out in the middle of the 5th over. Captain Saurav Ganguly was next up but was summarily dismissed for a duck with an LBW.
With the Indian batting order at risk of collapse, Mohammad Kaif arrived and helped stabilise the Indian side. Kaif scored 35 runs for a 102-run partnership with Tendulkar before being bowled out by Shahih Afridi. Tendulkar had picked up the pace after the 10th over, scoring his 12,000th ODI run in the process.
However, in the 27th over, the maestro was caught out after a masterful score of 98 runs off 75 balls. While Tendulkar had cut down the target by a wide margin, India still needed nearly another 100 runs to win the match. But India’s batting pool ran deep, with Rahul Dravid and Yuvraj Singh being on the field. A 44-run inning from Dravid and a half-century from Singh led the Indian side to emerge to victory with 6 wickets (and 26 balls remaining).
While fans would have loved to see the two rivals play against each other again in the tournament, Pakistan’s next match against Zimbabwe ended with no result and resulted in the team being knocked out. India played in the finals against Australia but the latter won the tournament and was crowned World Champions in 2003.
(Edited by : Sudarsanan Mani)
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