It came out of nowhere. Pakistan wasn't Pakistan yesterday. They were up for it, motivated, planned and gave it their all in regards to putting on a perfect display, more so than ever. India though, as they were maintaining throughout, just took it as another game and rightfully taught a lesson.

Two things happen when teams take a particular game very seriously. Either they end up taking the outside noise too much into their heads and falter in performing their primary skills. Or they take all the right things in, and become extra motivated and focused to perform to their fullest potential. And in Pakistan's case yesterday, it was the latter. As far as India is concerned, their bowlers just didn't turn up for the game.

Few eyebrows were raised when Babar Azam opted to bowl second in this huge encounter, as traditionally their record while chasing is very poor. But he was very keen to leave the history behind and focus on the present. And Shaheen Afridi made the perfect start with the ball to prove his captain right.

India and their struggles with the left arm seamers. Wait, we have seen this before haven't we? Mohammed Amir, Tent Boult and now Shaheen Afridi. Either this kind of bowling is overly good or India aren't doing their homework right in this regard. One can't just keep falling to the same trap over and over again. It'll not be long for teams to stack up left arm seamers whenever they play against India.

On facing his very first delivery, Rohit Sharma received an almost unplayable inswinging yorker from Shaheen, to which he couldn't lay a bat and was plumb in front. This was as dead out as it gets. It looked like an unplayable one, but not if the batter was prepared for and expecting this kind of stuff.

In the third over, Shaheen was back again with a bang and bowled a beautiful good length delivery at pace pitching middle and hitting middle, which swung a little too much to miss KL Rahul's flick. Shaheen was breathing fire out there. The IPL's orange cap holder had no answers to this mastery from the left armer.

And as always in big games, Virat Kohli was there for the rescue. He looked calm and composed at the crease and played some exquisite strokes. Surya Kumar Yadav pulled Shaheen for a maximum and tried to put the pressure back onto them. But his aggressive intent didn't let him last long at the crease as Hasan Ali rightly did his homework and got him with a back of length outside off.

Rishab pant joined his skipper in the middle and the pair started to score pretty quickly. Pant smoked a couple of one handed sixes and made the spectators look in awe of his skills. Just as India were looking to take control of the game, Pant skied one straight in the air back to the bowler Shadab. Once again India had to rebuild. And they did. But not very successfully though as the scoring got very slow.

With the help of Jadeja and Hardik at the end, Virat Kohli got the team total over 150 with himself getting 57. It wasn't that big a total, but India had something to play with.

Chasing a target that is in their comfort zone, Rizwan and Babar took their time initially. Not taking many risks, they just played normal cricketing strokes and got the scoreboard moving. Their running between the wickets was just to another level. It was the highlight of their partnership and that's what allowed them not to take too many risks as they were just there and thereabouts in the chase.

Sensing the game slipping away, Virat introduced Varun Chakravarthy very early into the attack in search of a breakthrough. He brought Jaddu on from the other end and tried to tie down the batters with tight stuff. And just as the run flow seemed to be stopped, the batters would just put one across the boundary. It was a real cat and mouse in middle overs.

What let Azam and Babar not to take too many risks even after playing out a few dots is their perfection in putting the bad ball away to the boundary. Their awesome judgement of length, allowed the batting duo to cut, pull and drive deliveries to the boundaries at will. Once the partnership reached the hundred run mark, shoulders started dropping in the India camp.

Virat tried all his bowlers in different stages of the game, but they couldn't create one possible chance in the entirety of the chase. The perfection of the Pakistani opening pair was to that level. It was almost as if they took classes from the master chaser, Virat Kohli himself. Their timing of the boundaries and the running between the wickets was just remarkable.

With 17 to get off three, Rizwan smashed Shami for two fours and a six, to humiliate India further in terms of NRR. Babar hit the winning runs in the same over and one can see what it meant to them with their celebrations.

It's a wake up call for India, glad it came at the very beginning. Still a long way to go in the tournament as this is just the first game, India need to forget this defeat as soon as possible. For Pakistan though, the magnitude of this victory is almost synonymous to winning the cup, if not more.

Brief Scores: India 151/7 in 20 overs (Virat Kohli 57, Rishabh Pant 39; Shaheen Afridi 3-31, Hasan Ali 2-44) lost to Pakistan 152/0 in 17.5 overs (Mohammad Rizwan 79*, Babar Azam 68*) by 10