Pakistan playing well as ICC strips the country of hosting rights till 2015
Pakistan, once again showed the world just why they are so good when it comes to twenty-twenty cricket as they continued their success-streak in warm up matches. On their tour of England they will go up against Australia and England as they play throughout the summer in the cricket fields of England.
The Pakistanis yesterday managed another successful victory as they beat Essex by 66-runs.
The Pakistanis after a long time are looking a well balanced side unlike their usual routine of relying on one or two individuals to win their matches, the warm-up games so far including yesterdays game saw the entire team contributing.
The Pakistani batsmen yesterday against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Essex-c783, piled on 204 runs in their allotted 20 over’s and then the bowlers shared the wickets as Essex finished their innings at 138 for the loss of 9 wickets.
Another plus for Pakistan’s new campaign, as they go on to take revenge from Australia for the recent humiliation, is the fact that after a long time Pakistan seem to have found a good partner for Salman Butt to open the batting with.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahzaib-Hasan-c2488 has so far looked brilliant in the warm up matches and even yesterday he was the launch pad for Pakistan’s mammoth total after Pakistan won the toss and chose to bat with Shahzaib making 49 runs.
On the other hand, every Pakistani player seemed to be in good touch as the all powerful Akmal brothers alongside, Shoaib Malik and Abdul Razzaq who put the finishing touches to their total tally of 204 runs as they lost only 4 wickets.
In the bowling department Abdul Razzaq again came to the party as he knocked over the Essex top order and thus made sure that the county stood no chance as they came out to chase.
The returning fast bowler, Shoaib Akhtar also managed an economical bowling spell. However, he could not get a wicket to his name as the spinners dominated the remaining Essex batsmen to finish the game with Essex managing only 138 runs.
To give credit to Pakistan, they now look a good outfit to test the mighty Australians, who themselves will be coming out of a series loss to hosts England.
Australia’s opener Simon Katich has said that under http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-Afridi-c2482 he believes the men in green will be able to generate that extra spark.
However despite the good warm-up form so far, what the fans really want of Pakistan is that they continue their performance to the games that will solely matter and those being the ones when they take on their actual rivals, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 and England.
Pakistan will play a total of four T20 matches, 5 tests and 5 one-days against the Australians and English sides this summer.
The series which was supposed to be Pakistan’s home series with both Australia and England to tour Pakistan was cancelled due to security concerns by the International Cricket Council and the International teams.
It is also this very concern of the ICC which will see Pakistan being the only country next year in Asia not hosting a single match as http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh host the ICC World Cup 2011.
Pakistan was stripped of their hosting rights due to poor law and order in the country after the touring Sri Lankan side in 2009 was subject to a terrorist attack, where gun men opened fire at their bus in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 cultural capital Lahore.
Since then no team has been seen in Pakistan to play cricket and the final blow to cricket in Pakistan and to answer the question of fans as to when they could see their teams play in Pakistan was also answered by the ICC yesterday.
The ICC in a statement has said that they have decided to not let Pakistan host any international match till 2015 and thus their events and host countries list until 2015 includes every cricket playing nation but Pakistan.
The insult was to the extent that at one end Pakistan does not feature in the list of host countries and then, the next two World Twenty20 Cups to take place in 2012 and 2014 have been awarded to http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Bangladesh-c747 respectively.
Pakistan as of now is playing http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Northamptonshire-c824, where once again they look comfortable to win after having restricted the English county team to 133 runs.
Australia at the same time are up against the English side trying to finish the 5 day one day series 3-2. Australia batting first managed a mammoth total of 277 runs for the loss of 7 wickets as Michael Hussey again game to the rescue pulling what he did against the Pakistanis in the T20 World cup.
England seem to be in total disarray and thus the series final score line seems a very likely 3-2.
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