Virat Kohli’s last-gasp masterclass sees India past Pakistan in game for the ages

Cometh the hour, cometh the absolute bedlam. In the end it all came down to the final over, eight balls in which everything that could happen did, and quite a few things that certainly couldn’t also did. At the start of it India needed 16 off six, at the end of it Mohammad Nawaz had bowled nine, there had been a six, a no-ball, two wides and a stumping, and Virat Kohli, having produced an innings for the ages to drag his side off the floor, was running around with his arms in the air.

Kohli scored 82 off 53 and India won by four wickets, but these are just numbers. This was an extraordinary game and an extraordinary night, an occasion as much about the noise that swirled around this enormous bowl – all 90,293 actors present in a supporting role – as it was the 22 on the field.

There is no fixture like this in world cricket. All the nonsense that surrounds ICC tournaments, all the sponsorship snafus, organisational issues, and minor games played in front of sparse crowds, are worth it just to force these sides together. Even a couple of hours before the start the atmosphere around the MCG, among the streams of fans heading towards the ground from Melbourne’s city centre and the honking cars driving past them, often with more green or blue-shirted fans spilling out of the windows, was intoxicatingly raucous and joyful.

The slogan of this tournament is “This is the big time”, a slightly jarring collection of words that generally feels either self-evident or inappropriate and most frequently the latter. But this – the noise and the colour, the energy and the anticipation, this early group-stage fixture in a tournament with 29 games still to play – this was the big time.

The noise from the stands varied throughout, from