From Virat Kohli to Hardik Pandya: Top three performers from the thriller at MCG

Cricket was stripped down to its bare essentials at the MCG in the dying moments when Ravichandran Ashwin very calmly shuffled himself to evade the flight path of Nawaz's wayward delivery that earned Team India the all-important run to tie the affair where it wasn't even sure till the last ball about which way the pendulum was going to swing.

With Virat Kohli off strike and India losing Dinesh Karthik on the fifth ball, the Indian fans were gobsmacked at the unfurling events that felt more like a classic whodunnit masterclass with the final upshot to be revealed on the last ball. Eventually, with the field up, Ashwin brought all his batting expertise to the fore as he dinked Nawaz over the in-field and ran that crucial run to impart a massive win to the Men in Blue in the tournament opener. With so much action in the last over singing a song of ice and fire in the words' truest essence, here are our top three performers from India versus Pakistan.

1. Virat Kohli

Need we say more about the beastly showdown that the master himself conjured to rain fire amongst the clueless Pakistan bowlers including one of the most talked about fast bowlers in modern-day cricket, Shaheen Shah Afridi? With the Indian batting order back in the pavilion within just 31 runs of the chase, it needed a Virat Kohli special to deliver a dampening blow to the soaring spirits of Pakistan. It started slow and it was more of a crawl than flight till the 17th over. With 48 needed from the final 3, Virat took matters into his own hands as he spawned a fight back with a 17-run over against Shaheen Afridi, leaving the Falcon grounded. The next in line to be bruised, battered and scarred was none other than Haris Rauf who bowled four impeccable deliveries to almost wrap up the game before Virat smashed him for two momentous maximums, one of which defied physics by all accounts. The final over saw Virat smashing Nawaz for a whopping launch in an above-waist full toss and showing some sharp presence of mind, as he managed to run three crucial digits when the free-hit delivery from Nawaz rattled his stumps and the ball ran down to the third man region. He stayed unbeaten for a 53-ball-82, a performance screaming for the Player of the Match award.

2. Arshdeep Singh

In a song of redemption written in the stars above, Arshdeep Singh grabbed the limelight early in the day with an earth-shattering spell at the MCG that saw him claiming Babar Azam for a golden duck with a ripper landing on the middle stump and drifting down the leg side in a very subtle manner that had enough in it to catch a whiff of Babar’s pads in front of the leg-stump. Not only was the Pakistan captain beaten for swing but the ball that was released at almost 142 clicks had enough power in it to leave Arshdeep’s counterpart reeling in agony. The next man to fall to the Indian left-arm seamer was Mohammad Rizwan who was undone by the awkward bounce and his attempted pull took him as far as Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the deep. The Indian rookie came back for a third over and this time was even better in the execution of his short ball that left Asif Ali stunned and once again the bounce did the trick for Arshdeep who would eventually finish with figures of 4-0-32-3.

3. Hardik Pandya

The Indian all-rounder packed another powerful punch both with the ball and the bat as he claimed 3 crucial scalps and stitched the highest partnership for the fifth wicket in the shortest format of the game between the two arch-rivals, a knock that also stabilized the Indian ship after being shaken by the early clouts of Pakistan. Just when Pakistan was trying to recover from an elemental blow dealt by Mohammed Shami, Hardik Pandya brought the brick-and-mortar to destabilize the opposition’s middle order. In a span of four balls, he claimed the big wickets of Shadab Khan and Haider Ali before returning with another short ball in the final over to get hold of Mohammad Nawaz. He came out to bat when India was wobbling at 31 for the loss of 4. However, the Gujarat Titans skipper slowly motored alongside Virat Kohli before switching gears and announcing India’s fightback intentions towards the latter half of the innings. Despite struggling to keep the momentum intact, Hardik hammered an important 40 from just 37 balls to keep the fight going, a partner that Virat Kohli so desperately needed at the other end.