India’s swing fast bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar believes his bowling partner, Jasprit Bumrah’s no ball was the turning point in the 2017 Champions Trophy final against arch-rivals Pakistan. Bumrah had dismissed Fakhar Zaman on a no-ball when the southpaw was only on three runs. The left-hander had edged the ball, which was taken by MS Dhoni.
However, when the umpires checked the no-ball, Bumrah had overstepped the crease. Zaman went berserk after that and took the game away from the Indians. The left-hander went on to score 114 from 106 balls with the help of dozen fours and three sixes. Pakistan was able to post a gargantuan total of 338 runs and the Indian team was under the cosh from the beginning.
India lost three early wickets as Mohammad Amir bowled a fiery opening spell and the Men in Blue were never in the contest after they were reduced to 72-6. Hardik Pandya did give a ray of hope with his blistering knock of 76 but the target of 339 was always going to be a speck on the horizon.
In fact, India had entered the contest as favourites because of their fine record against Pakistan in the major ICC tournaments. Furthermore, Virat Kohli’s men had also defeated Pakistan by 124 runs (DLS method) in the league stage match of the tournament. However, Pakistan was too good for the Indian team on that day.
Moreover, India last won a major ICC event back in 2013, when MS Dhoni led the team to Champions Trophy triumph. Subsequently, India has lost two semi-finals of the 50-overs World Cup in 2015 and 2019. Furthermore, they lost the final of the 2014 T20 World Cup and semi-final of the 2016 T20 World Cup. Hence, they have not been able to cross the last hurdle of the big tournaments.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar said while talking to Deep Dasgupta on ESPN Cricinfo, Cricketbaazi, “In the 2017 Champions Trophy final, things changed after Jasprit Bumrah’s no-ball. It’s not like we’ve had a one-sided loss or we went down without a fight. We’ve always lost due to an unfortunate event or incident”.
“Although, the 2017 Champions Trophy final was a one-sided loss where they outplayed us. And it’s difficult to pin-point the exact reason for the loss,” he added.
India hasn’t been able to handle the pressure in the big matches and they need to perform better when they are under the pump. In fact, the team is mostly brilliant in the league stages as they look invincible but it has been a different story for the big matches.
