India v Pakistan 2007-08

At Kanpur, November 11, 2007. India won by 46 runs. Toss: Pakistan.

When Yuvraj Singh does well, India usually do too: in this match he laid the foundations with the bat, added a crucial run-out, and sealed the deal with a wicket. After India were put in, Tendulkar and Ganguly were kept quieter than usual, and they fell in quick succession. Gambhir made only 25, but had time to be sufficiently incensed by Shahid Afridi's taunting to reply with a volley of abuse. When Afridi kept up the chirping, Gambhir took things further, running straight into him when completing a single. The umpires stepped in, but the incident cost Afridi 95% of his match fee and Gambhir, whose first offence this was, 65% of his. When Gambhir fell, Pakistan sensed a chance, but that was snuffed out by Yuvraj. His controlled hitting of Abdur Rehman, whose last three overs of left-arm spin cost 41, belied a supposed weakness against slow bowling. Dhoni chimed in with his own brand of unaesthetic butchery, and India finished close to 300. Salman Butt responded with a century - his fourth in one-day internationals, all against India - laced with typically clever drives through cover, but Dhoni countered with shrewd boundary-saving field-placings and some choking spin.