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Pakistan achieved on Sunday what could have been the best of the best victories for a seemingly beleaguered cricket team in the format of 50-over matches. The Pakistani team claimed the first-ever Champions Trophy title, humiliating one of the top teams by 180 runs. The Oval is a venue that had already helped Pakistan climb to number one in the Test rankings. Not only have Pakistan successfully broken the jinx through The Oval victory, they have buried India's cricket hubris in the same English ground. Consider:

This edition of Champions Trophy took place amid unprecedentedly high tensions between India and Pakistan. The BJP government was initially trying to employ an absolutely non-cricket tactic by encouraging voices that had been calling for the boycott of the Champions Trophy, which is considered as the most important cricketing event after the cricket World Cup, with a view to stepping up its Pakistan-bashing and ultimately deepening what New Delhi considers Islamabad's "isolation" as a sequence to what it did in relation to a scheduled SAARC moot that Pakistan was to host last year. It also tried to work out whether or not India could only boycott its encounters with Pakistan because both the teams had been placed in the same group. However, sanity gained ground as India could not afford to either boycott the entire tournament or its scheduled or unscheduled ties in England.

India's victory against Pakistan in the initial rounds of the tournament provided it with an opportunity to strengthen its anti-Pakistan propaganda on the basis of that solitary win. The Indian media led by "TimesNow," in its programmes focused on the highly disturbed political situation in Occupied Kashmir, cited that win to inject plausibility into New Delhi's brutal and inhumane approach there. The question, however, is: What will be India's propagandist approach to the occupied state and Pakistan after the final at The Oval where Pakistan humbled India in a manner that seems to have buried the Indians' false cricket pride?

Put in to bat by Indian captain Virat Kohli, the Green Shirts piled up a massive score of 338 after having failed to reach 250 hitherto in this tournament for the loss of four wickets. This resulted from in-form Fakhar Zaman and Azhar Ali giving their team an ideal platform with a stand of 128. To India's chagrin Mohammad Amir produced a memorable spell of fast bowling to destroy India's famed top order and place Pakistan in total control of the final till the last ball of the match. Century-maker Fakhar Zaman and principal wicket-taker Mohammad Amir deserve special commendations. The other team members also made fine contributions to Pakistan's victory. In a nutshell, the entire Pakistani nation owes to a young, hard-working, sturdy Pakistani captain Sarfraz Ahmed and his team. This Karachi lad has successfully carried out a job that could be compared with the victory of the team led by Imran Khan in the 1992 World Cup final: Pakistan were hopeless at the outset of both the tournaments. No doubt, their victory at The Oval has given a new dimension to the ambience of Ramazan; it will certainly add to the Eid festivities.



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