It was one-way traffic once more in an India-Pakistan game during Match 27 of T20 World Cup 2026 in Colombo on Sunday (February 15). Headlined by an Ishan Kishan masterclass coupled with a strong bowling performance, India registered a comfortable 61-run margin against Pakistan, to book their spot in the Super 8s.
On a used surface where batting was expected to get tougher against older ball, more so due to lack of dew, Pakistan surprisingly chose to field at the toss. Salman Ali Agha's decision may have come due to T20's general trend and the historical data at the Premadasa but with a largely overcast day in Colombo, dew was never going to be a factor.
With no dew, on a used surface, Pakistan had to bat first. Instead, they chose to field and to be frank, they could still have dominated proceedings if not for Kishan's outrageous innings. On a pitch where most Indian batters struggle to time the ball from the get-go, Kishan hammered 77 off just 40 balls. It was an innings of elite ball-striking skill and when he fell, India's score was only 88.
Pakistan had the chance to make further inroads but Tilak Varma (25 off 24) and Suryakumar Yadav (32 off 29) steadied the ship, even though they struggled to force the pace against Pakistan's spinners. The pitch also was harder to bat in the back end of the innings. At one point, India threatened to breach the 200-run mark but as has been the norm on most Lankan pitches, the inning slowed down.
In this context, the cameos from Shivam Dube (27 off 17) and Rinku Singh (11 off 4) were priceless. Their knocks ensured that India ended with 175 when it could have been a lot lesser due to the batting implosion. With no dew in sight, Pakistan needed a miracle to chase down 176 on such a slowing used surface.
Tactically, they wanted to go hard in the PowerPlay but Pakistan lost the plot completely and lost four wickets inside the PowerPlay itself. Sahibzada Farhan, who had a decent record against India in the Asia Cup, fell for a duck while Agha, Babar Azam and Saim Ayub all fell for single digits.
At 34/4 in the fifth over, the game was virtually over on this kind of a pitch. Pakistan realistically could have only minimised the margin of defeat but they weren't able to do that either. Surprisingly for India, Varun Chakaravarthy was barely needed as Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav picked up the wickets. Even the part-time spin of Tilak Varma got a breakthrough for the defending champions.
Only Usman Khan (44 off 34) looked in some sort of rhythm among Pakistan's batters but this wasn't a game or surface that one batter alone could have impacted. Only three Pakistan batters got to double digits as they crumbled against India's potent and disciplined bowling effort. Apart from suffering the defeat, the margin of it means a big dent to Pakistan's net run rate too.
