Pakistan in England:
Pakistan crush a demoralized England in the fourth ODI at Lord’s
An aggressive and fully pumped up Pakistani side crushed England yet again in a thrilling encounter by 38 runs at Lord’s to level up the series at 2 apiece.
Unplayable Pakistani bowling with the old ball and terrific batting at the end of their innings by all rounder Abdul http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Razzaq-c84421 helped Pakistan beat England in the 4th match of the NatWest One Day International Series. Chasing
Pakistan’s total, England were cruising at 113 with all their wickets intact. But once Davis fell, the collapse was seemingly underway. Davis departed one run short of what could have been an entertaining half century, but his fellow opener repeatedly played
with attention and utter responsibility to help England build a firm platform from where they could chase Pakistan’s total of 265.
With Trott and Collingwood back in the pavilion, the momentum started to swing in Pakistan’s favour. Ian Bell, who was brought into the side to replace Ravi Bopara, and left-hander Eoin Morgan resisted Pakistani bowling but couldn’t
manage to break away. Saeed Ajmal and Mohammad Hafeez bowled really well halfway through England’s innings by keeping their deliveries inside the line, making it difficult for the batsmen to play big shots and thus decrease the asking rate. Umar Gul and Shoaib
Akhtar soon joined the party, bowling yorkers and good length deliveries making runs harder to come by. Till Morgan was at the crease attempting to break Pakistan’s momentum, England had every chance to wrap up the series. But then Shoaib Akhtar’s low speedy
full toss delivery was hit straight into the air down the ground by Morgan. Unfortunately for England, the ball was never reaching the boundary, and instead found the hands of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mohammad-Yusuf-c77475 who took a brilliant catch.
With Morgan’s departure from the crease, it was all over for England as their tail could not stand up against Umar Gul’s drastic yorker and full length deliveries. Three of England’s tail-enders found their wickets strewn by Gul’s
splendid bowling. Umar Gul, who secured 6 wickets in the last game, became the leading wicket taker of the series by chipping in with four tonight. Shoaib Akhtar grabbed three wickets while Saeed Ajmal took two and Afridi one.
But the difference in the match was clearly made by Abdul Razzak. His 44 runs from 20 balls at the end of Pakistan’s innings helped put up a total that Pakistani bowling could defend. James Anderson and Stuart Broad bowled exceptionally
well in the later overs of the game - not giving any width outside the stumps to http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755’s middle order batsman and tightening up the scoring charts for them. But the hard hitting Abdul Razzaq kept his cool by first reading the line of the balls and then
going after the bowlers in the last two overs of the innings. Razzaq single handedly changed the course of the game by brutally blasting away as many as 8 boundaries and a massive six in last 12 balls that he played. He hammered Tim Bresnan for five consecutive
boundaries around every corner of the ground in the last five deliveries of Pakistan’s innings, raising their score from 223 in 48 overs to 265 by the end of the allotted 50 overs.
It was a delightful display of batting and bowling by the Pakistani team – one that their fans would surely appreciate after poor statements made by the PCB chairman and the controversies that surround the team. Moreover, Abdur
Razzaq seems to be in good form too now, which would make the all important fifth and final ODI all the more interesting.
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