Pakistan v South Africa Test Series: Green's unpredictability at its best
Pakistan cricket team is known to be one of the most unpredictable, brash, impulsive, erratic, capricious and irregular teams in the world. They can produce World Cup winning performances on some days, while on the other days they can be as indolent as a
hundred year old tortoise. However, if the current performance of the Pakistan team in the ongoing Test match series between Pakistan and South Africa is to be taken into consideration, then they’ve done what even the Aussies have failed to do many times;
matched the Proteas every step of the game.
To save or win any match requires team effort, and that is exactly what we’ve been seeing in the Test series in Dubai. In the first Test match, it was Younis Khan, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Misbah-ul-Haq-c1972, Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq who batted their hearts out to draw a game that looked
as if it had been lost. This team effort continued into the second Test match as well, where every man in the team worked hard and gave his best to surpass the magical number of 385, to ensure that http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 are unable to enforce the follow on.
Of course Pakistan owe much of their satisfaction and gratitude to their tail-enders, particularly Umar Gul, Tanvir Ahmed and Abdul Rehman. Abdul Rehman continued to bat with ease despite Mibah-ul-Haq’s shock dismissal on the first ball of the day, to reach
his maiden half century. He kept frustrating the South African bowlers to reach the milestone, after having picked up 3 wickets in South Africa’s first innings.
This is the type of showing that http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 was craving for, to un-tag itself from the label of a one-man band which has come to be associated with it. To be fair, Pakistan’s performance in both the first and second Tests has been inspirational. They have
competed on every level with the South Africans and even bested them at several of those encounters. Despite being set a world record run chase, the Pakistani batsmen ensured that the South Africans did not get ahead, and even in this match, people like Abdul
Rehman have outdone themselves in ensuring that Pakistan stays afloat.
In both the Tests, the only disappointing feature however has been the pitch. The grounds-men’s apprehensions and concerns in ensuring that a “safe” pitch is prepared has left much to be desired despite the fact that this measure was taken to ensure that
no negative publicity is harped on about the neutral venues. What the people in-charge probably forgot was that just seeing the bowlers toil away mercilessly is not the only viewing charm the followers of the game can get; instead, fall of wickets provides
equal entertainment given that the pitch has equal opportunity for both batsmen and bowlers.
Most of the Tests these days finish within four days because at the end of the day, the spectators do want to see an outcome; hence the uber-popularity of the limited overs format of the game. But the credence of Test cricket in providing the ultimate fascination
to its most ardent followers is undisputed. The five-day version of the game has unpredictability encoded into its DNA which makes the game so captivating.
The rearguard action by Abdul Rehman and his partners to ensure that Pakistan does not end up following on is one such example of how fortunes fluctuate in a Test match. It also showed how mesmerizing the match can be when the world’s notoriously unpredictable
team decides to pull off some sensational moments. The Pakistan cricket team might have drawn both the test matches statistically, but it won them both performance-wise.
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