First ICC World Twenty20 was held in South Africa in September 2007. The final match of inaugural t20 world cup was hosted by The New Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg. Arch rivals India and Pakistan faced each other in this championship deciding match played on 24 September.
It was a blockbuster final and before the starting of tournament, nobody imagined that inaugural ICC World T20’s final would be between India and Pakistan. Whenever teams of these two nations are up against each other, it always been special and billions of fans leave all their work to watch just this entertaining rivalry.
Checkout: India vs Pakistan 2007 final scorecard
Same thing happened on 24th of September 2007 when Indo-Pak clash was played in Johannesburg. In a pressure match, Indian cricket team’s captain MS Dhoni won toss and chose to bat first. Opening batsmen Gautam Gambhir and Yusuf Pathan came to bat and debuting T20I match playing Yusuf started to exploit Pak bowling. But he couldn’t capitalize his innings and returned to pavilion after scoring 15 runs in 8 balls with a six and four.
India’s middle order completely flopped in the final as Robin Uthappa, Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni failed to score the runs. All these three players played more balls then actually they scored in that innings. Their statistics of that inning were Uthappa (8 runs, 11 balls), Yuvraj (14 runs, 19 balls) and Dhoni (6 runs, 10 balls).
The only thing saved team India in that inning was opener Gambhir’s classy performance in a tensed match. He made vital 75 runs in 54 balls. Lower order batsman Rohit Sharma played quick firing innings of 30 runs in 16 balls that helped Men in Blue to post a total of 157 runs in 20 overs for the loss of 5 wickets. Umar Gul was the most successful bowler for Pakistan in the match as he took 3 wickets.
The target of 158 runs in terms of twenty20 format was not big but in prospects of wt20 final, it wasn’t easy to achieve the target. And it became more difficult when Pakistan lost opener Mohammad Hafeez in the very first over. Wicket-keeper batsman Kamran Akmal also failed and he returned pavilion without opening his account.
Pakistan team was in great trouble but opener Imran Nazir was playing his natural game and hitting the ball all over the park. He was looking dangerous for team India but a misunderstanding between him and Younis Khan, gave joy to Indian camp and Robin Uthappa hit the wickets to have Nazir run out.
The target was going far away from Pakistan when Shoaib Malik and Younis were batting like it was a test match, especially Malik. Malik played 17 balls to score just 8 runs before getting dismissed by Irfan Pathan. Now the match was in almost India’s pocket as Pak team was losing wickets regularly and their 6 wickets were down.
The real twist was still left in the match as middle order batsman Misbah-Ul-Haq was standing at one end and hitting the ball tremendously. The match went to the last over and still it was not confirmed who would become first champion of ICC World T20.
In the final over Pakistan required 13 runs and Misbah was on strike. Indian captain MS Dhoni asked Joginder Sharma to bowl and he bowled first ball wide. Hence now Pak was just needed 12 runs in 6 balls. Joginder bowled a dot ball and again fans were biting their nails as tough to say who would win.
Joginder started to run and bowler a full toss which Misbah sent off for a six. The equation was in favor of Pakistan as they needed 6 runs in 4 balls with 1 wicket remaining and Misbah was on strike. It seemed that Pak is just one shoot away from the cup but Misbah’s one mistake caused the game and trophy to Pakistan.
He tried to hit the boundary to the fine leg but he was caught to S Sreesanth and India won the match. India defeated Pakistan by 5 runs to win the inaugural edition of ICC World Twenty20. India’s Irfan Pathan was awarded Player of The Match for his brilliant bowling figures (4-0-16-3). Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi was declared Man of The Series.
