From school to college to work, some things in life are only hype and no substance.

This one had

some rain spattered around too to dull it further. Four years older and possibly four years wiser, the
build up refuses to die down and neither does the disappointment at having had a no-content.
Anyway, it's the scoreline that's added the seventh page of blanks for Pakistan and thumpings after
thumpings for India. So that'll end our overdrawn day of extended buildups, unwarranted rain
updates and some clinical Indian batting as I, Vineet Anantharaman, sign off on behalf of Akshay
Maanay, Ramakrishnan MS, Varun Dikshit, Nikhil Jadhav and our scorer, Shashikant Singh.
Until another four years of greying in the hope of something closer, ta ta!!

(2/2) I think they outplayed us in the Champions Trophy final, but apart from that we have played
good cricket against them. If you focus on this game with too much emotion, things can go haywire.
We never approach these games from the fans' atmosphere, but as cricketers we need to be
professional and understand what needs to be done on the field. Bhuvi's case looks like a niggle, a
case of slipping on the footmarks. It doesn't look too serious at the moment and looks like he could
recover in a couple of games from now, maximum of three games. He is going to be an important
factor for us so hopefully he can recover in time. But we have Shami with us and it shouldn't be
much of a worry for us. Even Bhuvi doesn't think his niggle is too bad and that time would heal it.

Virat Kohli | Winning skipper (1/2): To be honest, the pitch wouldn't have made much of a
difference. The only factor that I thought was different was that the pitch started turning towards the
last half of our innings. We wanted to bowl first in overcast conditions as the pitch had something in
it, and if we bowled in the right areas, there was enough for the bowlers. The template has been
really nice in the first three games till now - Rohit single-handedly winning us the first game, a team
effort in the second and today was Rohit's day again. You could say that to get to 330, you need a
team effort, KL set a great foundation with Rohit and Rohit after getting to 70-75 is unstoppable and
he showed again why he's such a good ODI player. It allowed me to play a certain kind of role and it
allowed Hardik to come and explode in the end. It has worked till now, gives us a lot of solidity in the
middle and it is a role that I am happy playing for the team. It is going really nicely at the moment.
Kuldeep was brilliant, those guys were only trying to play him out. A longer spell helped in that
situation and he was getting into rhythm. They were thinking that he would go out of the attack
sooner rather than later. That ball to dismiss Babar was just outstanding with the drift, the turn and
just beating the batsman batting so well. This is the best he has been bowling since coming to
England and him confident with Chahal is going to be an important factor for us in the tournament.

Sarfaraz Ahmed | Losing skipper: We won a good toss but unfortunately we didn't bowl in the right
areas, Credit goes to Rohit, he played really well. Our plan was to pitch it up but we didn't hit the
right areas. We won a good toss but we just didn't capitalize and conceded too may runs. I think the
ball was turning which is why we picked two spinners, who bowled well, but the Indian batsmen
played them really well. We were going really well with the bat as well, but we lost two-three quick
wickets in the middle which is when we lost the match. It is definitely getting tougher and tougher but
we have four matches and hopefully we'll win all four of them.

Rohit Sharma | Man of the Match: Really happy with the way we played as a team. We wanted to
get out on the park and play a game of cricket. It can get frustrating at times as our last game was
washed out due to rain. We had an intent of playing solid cricket and we did that today. I was
unhappy with the way I played that shot. He just pushed mid-on back and got fine-leg up; that was a
little misjudgement from my side. When you're set you want to get as many runs as possible, so it
was a disappointment when I got out. I wasn't thinking about the double hundred, trust me. It was a
good pitch and I wanted to continue batting as long as possible. We wanted to kill the game there
with our partnership, but unfortunately I got out at the wrong time. I think Rahul played really well, he
took time and that was required at that point. Can't go out there and play shots right away. He took
his time, saw the new ball off but unfortunately even he got out at the wrong time. The opening spell
was always going to be threatening and we wanted to play out the new ball; we got a good start and
we built on from there.

Highest total for India vs Pak (ODI):

356/9 Vizag 2005
349/7 Karachi 2004
336/5 Manchester 2019
330/8 Mirpur 2008
330/4 Mirpur 2012

Most one-sided contests in WC:

7-0 Ind vs Pak
7-0 Pak vs SL
6-0 WI vs Zim
5-0 Pak vs Zim
5-0 SL vs Zim
5-0 NZ vs Zim
5-0 NZ vs Ban

19:29 Local Time, 18:29 GMT, 23:59 IST: Nine hours since it all started, 6-0 --> 7-0. And in each of
the seven, there were two things missing, Pakistan and a challenge. Nonetheless, it's a proud record
this, starting from Sydney, coming home to Bangalore, flying to Manchester, crossing the equator to
Centurion, returning to Mohali, going back Down Under to Adelaide and then Old Trafford carries on
the baton. But keeping up with this tournament's trend of rain coming in to spoil fun, this one was a
mother of fun-spoilers. It behaved itself for nearly 46 overs, and then kept coming, going, cutting
overs, killing Pakistani hopes. But on the very same 2011 and 2015 template, Pakistan were going
along well at one stage, today with Babar Azam and Fakhar Zaman having laid the platform. Or so
they thought! All it needed was for Kuldeep to rip through Babar, fox Fakhar and then Pandya to chip
in with a couple more. And when it rained once more, it was good enough to kill all the mood.