14 October,2023 03:49 PM IST | Ahmedabad | mid-day online correspondent
Virat Kohli (Pic: AFP)
Virat Kohli was on Saturday forced to leave the field after the Indian batting maestro, inadvertently, wore the wrong jersey ahead of their high-profile ICC World Cup 2023 clash against arch-rivals Pakistan. Both India and Pakistan entered the match with two successive wins under their belt from as many outings.
Realising the mistake, Kohli, architect of some of India's biggest wins over Pakistan, left the field in the seventh over and returned before the eighth over, in which Mohammed Siraj claimed the wicket of Abdullah Shafique.
The Delhi dazzler initially took the field wearing a jersey with plain white stripes on the shoulders instead of the shirt that has the tri-coloured stripes on it.
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While the normal Indian jersey has three white stripes, a special one has been made for the World Cup with the tri-coloured stripes on the shoulder.
Earlier, Indian captain Rohit Sharma won the toss and elected to bowl first in the big game. The decision to bowl first after winning the toss might raised a few eye-brows but the Indian team always had things under control despite a 72-run third wicket stand between skipper Babar Azam (50 off 58 balls) and Mohammed Rizwan (49 off 69 balls).
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It was a matter of one wicket and once Siraj (2/50) got one to just move in a shade from a shorter length, the Pakistan skipper misjudged it completely and remained rooted to his crease trying to steer it to third man. The sound of timber was what 100,000 at Motera wanted to hear.
Rizwan, on cusp of his half-century got a wobbly seam slow off-cutter from Bumrah (2/19 in 7 overs), that entered through the gap between bat and pad as Pakistan's resistance ended at that moment.
While Pakistan openers Abdullah Shafique (20) and Imam ul Haque (36) had started off well with 41 on the board, Siraj kept one on three quarter length and got that to dart in, catching the former plumb in-front.
(With inputs from agencies)
