India vs Pakistan, Cricket World Cup 2019: Virat Kohli's men win by 89 runs (DLS)
Re-live all the action from Old Trafford
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Your support makes all the difference.A dominant India beat Pakistan by 89 runs via Duckworth-Lewis method in a rain-hit group match at Old Trafford to maintain their unbeaten World Cup record against their arch-rivals on Sunday.
Put into bat in a stop-start match, India posted a commanding 336-5 with Rohit Sharma (140) smashing his second century of the tournament.
Skipper Virat Kohli (77) and KL Rahul (57) also got fifty but Mohammad Amir's (3-47) tight death-overs spell denied India a 350-plus total in the sold out contest between the arch-rivals.
A century stand between Fakhar Zaman (62) and Babar Azam (48) kept alive Pakistan's hopes until they suffered a batting collapse and finished on 212-6 in 40 overs chasing a revised target of 302.
Kuldeep Yadav, Hardik Pandya and Vijay Shankar claimed two wickets each for India who now have a 7-0 record against Pakistan in World Cup.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of one of the biggest rivalries in sport: India vs Pakistan.
This is a fixture that rarely gets played outside out international competitions and as a result around 800,000 people applied for tickets to the Old Trafford match.
Earlier in the year the Indian cricket team were urged to boycott Sunday’s match at Old Trafford after a Pakistan-based militant group claimed responsibility for a suicide attack in India-administered Kashmir in February that killed 46 paramilitary police officers.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) was prepared to stand by any government decisoin and called on the International Cricket Committee (ICC) to “sever ties with countries from which terrorism emanates”, while India cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar said losing points to Pakistan would be painful but added he would support whatever the BCCI decided to do.
Thankfully talk of a boycott has disappeared and the game will go ahead, weather permitting.
Virat Kohli: “For us, nothing in the changing room is different. Nothing changes in our mindset. We are a top side in the world because of the cricket that we played, and we always need to remember that, and our focus is absolutely that.”
Mickey Arthur: “I'm telling our players in the dressing room, you could be a hero tomorrow. Your careers are going to be defined by a moment in the game. You do something incredible tomorrow, you'll be remembered forever."
Stay tuned for the teams and the result of the toss at around 10:00am
Today's game at Old Trafford is, without doubt, the most anticipated of the World Cup so far. The global television audience is expected to reach 1 billion. There were 700,000 applications for tickets.
Pakistan and India's historic rivalry makes this a mouth-watering prospect. The atmosphere is building in Manchester, at a packed out Old Trafford. This should be good.
Sarfaraz has chosen not to follow the advice of Pakistan's Prime Minister. Whether that was a wise decision remains to be seen, but it's certainly following the trend of this World Cup. Teams, clearly, back themselves in a run chase.
Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur has certainly not played down the significance of this game. It is, he says, the biggest game of his players' careers:
I'm telling our players in the dressing room, you could be a hero tomorrow. Your careers are going to be defined by a moment in the game.
You do something incredible tomorrow, you'll be remembered forever. I saw some stats which said the soccer World Cup final attracted 1.6bn viewers. Tomorrow is likely to get 1.5bn. It doesn't get bigger than that. It doesn't get more exciting.
We've got 15 incredible cricketers in that dressing room, and we keep stressing to them: How do you want to be remembered?
The anthems have been sung and we're almost ready to get started! Old Trafford is bouncing.
1.0 India 0-0 KL Rahul 0 Rohit Sharma 0
Mohammad Amir begins the bowling for Pakistan and starts with a maiden over. Rahul, opening in place of the injured Shikhar Dhawan, is watchful and patient, in no hurry to get off the mark. A strong start for Amir and Pakistan.
1.3 India 4-0 KL Rahul 0 Rohit Sharma 4
A big slice of luck for Rohit! Hassan Ali nips one back into the right hander and a big inside edge takes it away to the boundary. India are off the mark.
2.0 India 9-0 KL Rahul 0 Rohit Sharma 9
Rohit gets five more from the over, working the ball to the leg side for three with the last delivery, to get things going for India. The outfield is quick, which will make things difficult for the fielding team.
3.0 India 11-0 KL Rahul 1 Rohit Sharma 10
Just two runs come from another good Amir over. He does get a warning from the umpire, though, for running on the pitch in his follow-through.
The key for Pakistan is getting Rohit out before he's settled. As he showed with his controlled and measured century against South Africa, he's a player in top form.
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