Centurion, Sept. 27: A century of great composure from Shoaib Malik and his 206-run middle order partnership with Mohammad Yousuf overcame cameos from Rahul Dravid, Gautam Gambhir and Suresh Raina as India crashed to a 54-run defeat against Pakistan in their opening Group A game of the 2009 Champions Trophy at the SuperSport Park here on Saturday night.

Chasing Pakistan’s mammoth 302/9, India were dismissed for 248 in the 45th over to severely dent their hopes of progressing in this tournament.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s men have to now beat both Australia (in Centurion on Monday) and the West Indies two days later at the Wanderers to make the semi-finals of an event they never really have done well in, except in 2002 when they were joint winners with Sri Lanka and runners-up in 2000.

It was also only the second time that Pakistan have beaten India at an ICC-organised tournament, the previous occasion too being at the Champions Trophy, in 2004.

Pakistan, for their part are now all but in the semi-finals, having beaten the West Indies three days ago at the Wanderers by five wickets, though Australia are a formidable final hurdle when the two teams meet on September 30 here at the SuperSport Park.

Between overs 35 and 45 of the Pakistan innings, India gave away 92 runs, which in the final analysis proved to be the turning point of the match as the Men in Blue were never able to sustain their tempo of run-getting to match that flood of runs. Dravid (76, 103b, 3x4) struggled manfully but the stream of departures at the other end was too much to cope with single-handedly.

"From the 30th over to the 42nd over I think we gave away about 100 runs and that was crucial. You don’t want to give away so many runs especially when the field is spread," Dhoni said.

"That was tough, I tried whatever we had," he added.

India were hit early and hard when Sachin Tendulkar edged Mohammad Aamer into Kamran Akmal’s gloves but a breezy 57 from Gambhir (46b, 7x4, 2x6) and his 67-run stand with Dravid reignited the chase. Till, Gambhir was caught short of his ground .

Kohli and Dhoni did not stay around for too long but Raina took the Pakistan attack by the scruff of its next to thrash 46 from just 41 balls with five powerful boundaries and two sixes, one each off Umar Gul and Shoaib Malik.

His departure, with 98 still required was the signal for the end, though the fall off the aggressive Gambhir was the first and more serious setback.