T20 World Cup: India has mastered the art of winning T20 matches

Hence, India’s celebrations were seldom feverish. Raw joy was masked in a stone-cold exterior. Routine group stage wins don’t excite them. Only bigger feats can inspire wild celebrations.

India’s domination has begun to resemble a bloodless coup, devoid of resistance and drama, exuding a calm ruthlessness reminiscent of Ricky Ponting’s Australia.

Put into bat, Pakistan captain Salman Agha, flashing a grin, said the surface looked tacky. He had stocked his side with spinners of all hues and took the new ball himself to shock Indians.

But Pakistan’s luck of the night ended there, when he tricked Abhishek Sharma into a false shot in the last ball of the first over. India, like champion teams perform, has a hero for every moment. Sunday’s hero was Ishan. The surface was difficult by T20 norms, some balls stopped at batsmen, some held up.

But Ishan was on a single-minded mission to uncork his strokes. And so he did, with an array of sweeps, cuts, thumps and drives, en route a hall-of-fame 77 off 40 balls. His inclusion for the T20 World Cup team came against all odds. And here, he played an innings against all odds, taking on the spin challenge thrown at him by Pakistan and leaving them gasping for breath.

The innings was as impactful as that of Sachin Tendulkar’s at the Centurion in the 2003 World Cup. If the Little Master’s 98 had come against arguably the strongest Pakistan pace attack in ODIs, Ishan’s came against a herd of quality spinners, who had just handed Australia a white-wash in similar conditions

“India versus Pakistan is always a special game not only for us but for our country as well. Winning this game against Pakistan will give us a lot of confidence and we will look to keep the momentum going,” Ishan told the official broadcaster later.

The match was half won by the time he got out. But it’s here where India’s knowhow and wisdom kicked in. Ishan’s colleagues did not get carried away. They resisted the lure of glory strokes; rather approached the innings like the middle overs of an ODI game. The 38-run stand between Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma consumed 34 balls, but it was the conservative tempo the match situation required.

Few teams have cracked the ficklest format’s traits, mastered its beats and grasped its impulses like India. They have an answer for every situation, often the right answer. Ishan’s blitz was risk-fraught, but it’s his natural game. So compromising would have been counterproductive. Tilak is not a carefree hitter like Ishan, so the team let him play his way. Suryakumar was restrained, because the Pakistan’s spinners were bowling efficiently in the middle phase. It was a deck that allied accumulation rather than hitting every ball out of the park. Besides, he knew the likes of Shivam Dube and Rinku Singh could flick on the afterburners.

Once 175 was put on board, the chase was a near-impossible task. India’s bowling firm has the perfect blend of tricksters, enforcers, stiflers and geniuses. The spinners were expected to steal the show, but the fast-bowling duo of Hardik Pandya and Jasprit Bumrah had a different say. By the time a spinner was introduced, in the fifth over, Pakistan were already three down for 21 runs. Varun Chakaravarthy and Co merely scavenged on the dead horse and wrapped up the game.

The Indian fans were joyous; their Pakistan counterparts gutted. But both are used to these feelings. For, India’s domination has been the recurring theme of their match-ups in this format. India have won 13 of their 16 encounters; the last few, like the Colombo game, have been achieved without excessive strain.

But hope of a close contest swirled in Colombo air in the build-up for the game. In the hours leading up to the fixture, Colombo had been buzzing with everyone having an eye on the skies as there were forecasts of rain before the start of the play. With all India vs Pakistan fixtures anywhere in the world, fans thronged the city from all parts with some estimates pointing to around 12,000 travelling from India alone. The Premadasa was a sea of blue, as India’s fans clearly outnumbered the ones in green. Throughout the night they celebrated wildly. The night had given them many reasons to celebrate. It did not rain, it rained sixes and fours, Ishan composed a classic T20 knock and India showed that no team has mastered the pulse of the format like them.