A charged-up Gautam Gambhir gave India's chase a rollicking start, but his first error, a lazy piece of running, let Pakistan back in when he was threatening to make the chase seem like a cakewalk. Shahid Afridi then got his foot in the door, removing Virat Kohli and and MS Dhoni in quick succession.
Gambhir's 46-ball 57 had taken India to 90 for 1 in the 14th over, when Rahul Dravid hit firmly to a close mid-off, called him for a single and sent him back. Gambhir, though, didn't make a desperate effort to dive or sprint back, and was undone by a direct-hit from Younis Khan. Replays showed a dive could have saved his wicket. All the way back Gambhir kept admonishing himself for leaving the job unfinished. Nonetheless that half job was sensational, especially after Mohammad Aamer had taken out Sachin Tendulkar early.
Tendulkar's wicket in a big match will definitely be one of the highs of Aamer's career, but he was soon shown the lows by Gambhir. He was carted over mid-on and pulled to fine leg for fours, and then he bowled a no-ball. The free hit landed into the crowd behind the square-leg boundary. Aamer was not alone in helping Gambhir along. In all Aamer and Umar Gul gave him four free hits; two of them went for sixes, one for four, and one was a dot.
Gambhir's innings wasn't pretty - he got only four runs in the "V", clearing the font leg and hitting over the leg side was a key part of the knock. That onslaught let Dravid settle in, without letting the required run-rate creep up. Gul helped him further by serving up the fifth free hit of the innings, which crashed into the midwicket boundary. By halfway mark, Pakistan had given away 22 runs through no-balls and free hits to go with eight wides. India in comparison gave away 12 wides and no no-balls.
Dravid and Kohli focused on rotating the strike, and added 36 in 7.2 overs when Kohli looked to loft Shahid Afridi straight down the ground, but the turn took it to long-off. Afridi proceeded to rip one legbreak across Dravid. When Dhoni, unsettled by the pitch, stepped out to him, missed, and was hit in the front for the second time, he was given out boldly by Simon Taufel, which left India a huge task in last quarter of the match.
If this was a game of chess, Pakistan's openers looked to play the blitz version, but it was the more orthodox game from Mohammad Yousuf and Shoaib Malik that carried Pakistan to a formidable total in their first international against India in close to a year and a half. The old formula of doubling the 30-over score still applied to Pakistan, as they accelerated from 139 for 3 after 31 overs to score 163 in the last 19. In the process they made a mockery of the view that middle overs in ODIs have become formulaic and boring.
Those late-middle overs also featured the biggest blow to India, the negating of Harbhajan Singh through easily milked singles, and craftily late-cut boundaries. Habhajan's already poor record against Pakistan now reads 10 wickets in 15 ODIs, at an average of 71.1 and a strike-rate of 87.6. Following the trend, Malik improved his already strong record against India: four of his seven centuries have now come against them, and his average of 52.24 against India is a stark contrast to his 35.27 overall. He also crossed 5000 ODI runs during the innings, and 1515 of those have come against his favourite opposition.
India's pace bowlers seemed to have made a remarkable comeback from the openers' onslaught when they reduced Pakistan from 51 for 1 in seven overs to 65 for 3 in 15. The first seven overs had featured nine smashing boundaries, the next eight none. The strike was not being rotated, and MS Dhoni took that opportunity to delay the introduction of Harbhajan, and get through some cheap overs from the part-timers. He needed all the cheap overs he could get from the part-timers because one of his main bowlers, RP Singh, was completely off tune.
Malik, especially, looked like going nowhere, his score at various stages of the innings reading 3 off 16, 10 off 31, and then 34 off 69. By that same time, Yousuf, his usual silken self, had reached 35 off 45 almost unnoticed, having hit just one boundary, that too off a rank long hop from Virat Kohli.
And then Yousuf signaled intent, not with a big winding shot, but with a deft late cut off Yusuf Pathan in the 32nd over. Malik followed suit, and guided Harbhajan to the third-man boundary in the next over. In the over after that both Yousuf and Malik cut Pathan for boundaries, and suddenly the Indian bowlers started getting rattled.
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Shoaib Malik's wagon wheel © Hawk-Eye
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Malik became especially severe, welcoming Ishant Sharma back with three boundaries in one over. Dhoni then brought RP back, and he went for back-to-back boundaries against Malik, who had started toying with the unimaginative bowling, going over extra cover, beating third man on both sides, and also hitting the odd straight shot. By the end of the 40th over, Malik had reached 84 off 98, and more was to come.
Yousuf was not exactly slow at the other end, his boundaries through point and over extra cover, both off RP, were a treat to watch. But he missed a well-deserved century by 13 runs, losing his middle stump to the India's only saving grace, Ashish Nehra, in the 46th over. Their 206-run stand took just 188 legal deliveries and broke their own record for the fourth wicket against India. Malik, though, wasn't done yet. He had one higher gear left and the last five overs being the batting Powerplay helped. He rearranged Nehra's decent figures before holing out to Harbhajan's last delivery of the innings.
Despite the late flurry of wickets, and a two-run last over from Ishant, Pakistan managed 41 in the last five overs, setting India five more than has ever been chased in Centurion.
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