ASIA CUP 2010 – INDIA BEATS PAKISTAN BY 3 WICKETS, DAMBULLA

Pakistan and India met in the group stages of the 2010 Asia Cup hosted by Sri Lanka. This match was played in Dambulla and Pakistani captain Shahid Afridi won the toss and chose to bat first to take advantage of the second innings’ turn the pitch gave.

Salman Butt (71) and Kamran Akmal (51) were the top scorers for the Pakistani team, who had lots of the starts from other batsmen like Shoaib Malik (39) and Shahid Afridi (32). Praveen Kumar picked up three wickets in the death overs to stop Pakistan from reaching close to 300 and Zaheer and Harbhajan Singh picked two each to rattle the Pak top order.

Pakistan ended up making 267 runs and India needed 268 runs to win the match.

Though Sehwag (10) and Kohli (18) got out early, Gambhir (83) anchored one end with Dhoni (56) supporting him. It all came down to Suresh Raina (34) and Harbhajan Singh (15*) to take India home, which Harbhajan did in style, which included hitting Shoaib Akhtar for a huge six over cow corner.

India reached the target with 1 ball to spare and 3 wickets in hand.

Here are the highlights: