India squash Pakistan at Colombo to script history

The reserve day turned out into an absolute banger for Team India as they steamrolled Pakistan to carve history at the R. Premadasa Stadium in the ongoing edition of Asia Cup 2023. 

Put to bat by Pakistan, India were off to a blinder on the first day as Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma mastered a half-century each to set the tone. Before the start of the game, the Men in Blue suffered a crucial drawback as Shreyas Iyer had to be withdrawn due to a spasm in the last moment.

An incoming KL Rahul was finally set to return to the thick of things and he returned with a bang. As India lost their two openers after a boisterous century stand, Rahul and Virat Kohli took over the reins of the game in their own hands and did keep the scoreboard ticking before rain called play off on day one.

Resuming game on day two, Virat and Rahul continued exactly where they left and started clobbering the Pakistani bowlers out of the park without breaking a sweat.

More importantly, there was some brilliant running between the wickets that saw Kohli and Rahul amping up the tempo to their own sweet and destructive rhythm.

It was in the 47th over that saw Rahul completing his century with a fine flick down the legside before running in extremely hard to complete a couple of runs. Three balls later, Virat brought up his 77th international ton (47th in ODIs) as he tapped a ball from Shaheen Afridi on the offside to secure the massive feat. 

When he reached his late 90s, Kohli became the fifth batter in the antiquity of ODI cricket to complete 13000 runs, but the fastest to the milestone. 

India finished things off with the bat by posting a mammoth 356/2 that saw Kohli staying unbeaten for 122 from just 94 balls while KL Rahul stayed unbeaten for 111 from 106 balls.

Pakistan could barely scratch the surface even, falling like a house of cards in front of the Indian bowling unit. Jasprit Bumrah provided the first major breakthrough with a stunner that got rid of Imam ul Haq.

Hardik Pandya struck soon enough with a peach that knocked back Babar Azam's stumps before the heavens cracked open. After the rain break, Mohammad Rizwan fell to Shardul Thakur as the Indian flags were fluttering higher than ever.

Wobbling at 47/3, Pakistan did try and stage a turnaround through Fakhar Zaman and Agha Salman but before the duo could conjure something up, Kuldeep Yadav's introduction slammed the door shut on Pakistan's batting unit.

With two players absent hurt in the form of Naseem Shah and Haris Rauf, India capped off the game in stunning fashion, courtesy of Kuldeep Yadav who bagged a fifer to announce his return to the grandest stage of all.

India scripted a 228-run victory over Pakistan to chronicle their biggest win against their arch-rivals in ODI cricket while Kohli was awarded the Player of the Match award for another iconic knock of his which saw India coming down upon their neighbours like a ton of bricks.