Gul’s heroic act inspires Pakistan win
Good luck continues to favour Pakistan cricket team as they registered their first win in the limited overs version in a thrilling encounter versus England, today at The Brit Oval.
Pakistan registered their first series win in the Natwest One Day International Tournament, beating a less competitive England side in a dramatic game of cricket by 23 runs. The hero of the night once again was the young
destructive bowler Umar Gul whose heroic performance with the ball made him gather six top wickets for his team, giving away a mere 42 runs in his allotted 10 overs. Gul, who did not start well early on in the innings by conceding a boundary on his very first
ball that he bowled, covered up quickly to learn from his mistakes, by dislocating Andrew Strauss’ stumps in his third over for 57 when he posed serious threat to the opponents. Strauss’ much needed wicket engulfed in him the feel and thrill to demolish rest
of England’s score card as he reached on to grab 5 more wickets, delivering a match winning performance for his team.
England’s star batsman over the season Eoin Morgan clicked in for the first time in the series and held a great partnership with all rounder Luke Wright to threaten Pakistan. Both the middle order batsmen teamed up well and
showed great resistance to Pakistan’s trying-to-be-strong bowling line up in a quest to secure the series win. The partnership of 98 runs between the two with less than run a ball really set up the momentum for game in England’s way after they were 5 down
for just over 100 runs on the board. Morgan with bulk of the share in partnership executed his innings well, defending the deliveries coming into the wicket and punishing those outside the line. Wright remained unbeaten till the end of England’s innings but
failed to make a bigger impact by winning the third game in a row for his side. The match was pretty much under control of England in the latter half of the innings until Morgan gave away his wicket on a lose delivery outside the leg stump while trying to
chip away for a boundary down the long on, only to have found the safe pair of substitute Wahab Riaz’s hands. His wickets opened the gates for Pakistan and Umar Gul to put pressure back on England, who could not walk back further, presenting their wickets
to Gul at the end of innings with 23 more runs still to get.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 had to face early difficulties in the game, when their top order crumbled down to 3 for just 31 runs on the board. Runs became hard to come by as they merely reached 100 runs in the 27thover of their innings.
Young Asad Shafiq, playing his 4th ODI, for another time in a row batted sensibly and boosted the innings with Fawad Alam, laying a solid platform for Pakistan to carry on their innings. After Asad’s dismissal, Afridi joined the party
with Fawad Alam and smashed balls to every corner of ground before throwing away his wicket with a ridiculous run out. The skipper who was playing his 299th One Day International game showed carelessness by not grounding his bat clearly
to the ground when a direct throw that came off Graeme Swann from long on made him suffer for his foolish act. Afridi later on convicted his fault and felt sorry to the team for showing irresponsibility. A nice little cameo by all rounder Abdur Razzaq and
Umar Gul towards the end of innings helped Pakistan reach a respectable total of 241 runs after choosing to bat first. For England, pick of the bowlers was James Anderson who chipped in with figures of 3 for 26 in his 10 overs quota including 2 maidens. He
was well supported by Tim Bresnan and other seam bowlers who reduced the score.
England are still 2-1 up in the five match series with the fourth game to be played on Monday, 20th September at Lord’s Cricket ground.
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