Virat Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar Embrace Ahead of World Cup Contest Between India and Pakistan

Ahead of the blockbuster clash between India and Pakistan in Ahmedabad, Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli, two of the finest batters the game has seen were reunited at the Narendra Modi Stadium.

Tendulkar, the most prolific batter in the history of the game, was present for the highly-anticipated world cup contest between India and Pakistan in Ahmedabad. The picture of the two embracing went viral on social media.

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India captain Rohit Sharma won the coin toss and elected to bowl first with his team aiming for a hat-trick of wins having beaten Australia and Afghanistan.

India have blemish-free record against Pakistan in ODI World Cups having beaten them on all seven occasions.

“Cannot get bigger than this, fantastic atmosphere,” Rohit said at the toss. “Sure lot of us are going to experience something really extraordinary. It’s a good track, not going to change much, dew could be a big factor and keeping that in mind, we want to bowl first. We want to keep striving for the best, we want to come out there and give our best in every game. Keeping the atmosphere in the team relaxed is the most important thing in a tournament like this.”

India bowlers produced a combined display and Shardul Thakur was the only bowler out of the six they used who didn’t finish among the wickets.

Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya and Mohammed Siraj took two wickets each as Pakistan suffered an epic collapse to be bowled out for 191 in 42.5 overs.

Pakistan lost both their openers – Abdullah Shafique and Imam-ul-Haq – inside 13 overs. However, Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan stitched a solid partnership to take control.

Babar soon completed his half-century, his first such score against India in ODIs. However, he was cleaned up by Siraj on 50 which triggered collapse.

From 155/2, they slipped to 171/7 and then 191-all out.