The story of the Pakistani cricket still continues. It’s almost reached a frustrating level where the fans, which are starved for victory since the last T20 world cup, are going to disown this wonderful sport. The performance against New Zealand was the last nail in the coffin as far as Pakistani cricket is concerned.
Up till now fans have tolerated the poor performance of the team as they always associated the word ‘world T20 champions’ with them. That brought some pride to the wounded. But now that has changed as well, losing today has destroyed the hopes of all those 1.6 billion people.
It was a match which Pakistan was expected to win, but then again is there one where they are not in this format. Knowing that they usually are under pressure while chasing and also Rehman as an extra bowler they should have backed their bowling, but the decision to ball first after winning the toss was a questionable one. It was proven wrong straight away as the Asif’s replacement; Muhammad Sami was again hammered in the opening over’s. One still can’t understand that on a pitch where bounce is destructive why can’t the Pakistani bowlers bowl short? At least the champions are expected to know that length bowls in this format are anything but profitable.
Pakistan seemed to have made the first right choice of the tournament by including the left arm spinner ‘Abdur Rehman’ in the team. The moment he came in the 5th over, Pakistan started to pull it back. With very tight and accurate spin bowling, Pakistan started to increase the pressure on the kiwis. With increasing number of dot balls, the batsmen were pushed into harsh shots, especially Guptill who was dismissed by a magnificent one handed catch by the young Umer Akmal. A very positive sign for Pakistan was the fielding effort they put in the match. Surprisingly, not a single catch was dropped by the men in green, a feat hardly achieved in recent times.
Every tale associated with the Pakistani tea these days, does not come without the faults, Hafeez, Rehman and Aamer were the three best bowlers for Pakistan, but surprisingly the lot bowled 3 over’s each. This meant that Afridi completed his quota of 4 overs in which he was hit for 2 sixes by Daniel Vetori. Although he took 2 wickets, the bowling of the Pakistani captain was not up to his high standards, taking nothing away from Vetori I would say here that he was given more runs than he actually deserved. Adding a last ball six, the black caps succumbed to a feeble 133.
Defending 133 on this pitch was going to be a miracle, as quoted by the commentator, but then again Pakistan has a solid believe in miracles as that is what they rely on when they go into a cricket match without any plan. The run chase should have been a formality if a plan would have been devised and if roles would have been defined, but that is never something one can expect from Pakistan. They went in without any solid understanding of their roles and did not know if they had to go for their hits or defend the balls.
That resulted in the demise of Kamran Akmal who is a very explosive batsman but the hesitation to hit a juicy half volley resulted in him dragging it onto his stumps. Hafeez started aggressively but was hard done by a rising delivery. The trouble against the short ball continued as Umer Akmal nicked a bouncer in an effort to withdraw his bat from the shot, another sign of the negative approach of the Pakistani run chase. The person who came in next is perhaps the worst Batsman of the Pakistani team, this guy does not believe in singles, and has hardly ever run a double in his life.
I still can’t believe that he is part of the Pakistani team because of the performance he gave in the T20 world cup 2007. It’s been three years since that final against India that Misbah ul haq has not performed well in a T20 match. For reasons known just to him, he is absolutely horrified of hitting the ball for runs. If given a free hit, he easily hits it for a six but on legitimate balls, he just wants to stick himself to the pitch. Most of the Pakistani Batsmen did not score too many runs but at least they did not waste many deliveries. He batted for 13 precious balls just to score 3 runs, which also included a maiden over. A maiden over without a wicket in this format is a sin for the batting team.
After Shahid Afridi was dismissed because of a doubtful catch Pakistan looked out of the match. It was very strange that Afridi did not wait long enough on the crease in order for the umpire to refer the legitimacy of the catch. He just went off the field not realizing that it was curtains for his team after that. But a resilient Salman butt, who had batted out of his skin up till now, once again put up a fight to shut his critics down.
The partnership between him and the explosive Abdul Razaq, again brought hope in the camp of Pakistan. Another twist in the tale came as Nathan Mcullam bowled a superb 18th over, conceding only 4 runs and getting the wicket of the dangerous Razaq. Butt continued in his merry ways to reduce the chase to 11 runs off the last over. Hitting 2 fours, he took the single to reach within 2 runs of victory with one remaining ball.
Now this is the time when one realizes why the Pakistani players don’t have a thinking brain in their heads. A single was always on to send the match to a super over, but instead Mr. Abdul Rehman on his come back to the Pakistani team hit the ball to the only man who was placed deep on the leg side. Why he did not hit that juicy length ball on his pads along the ground is a question that would never be answered like the many other questions one associates with Pakistani cricket.
Pakistan is surely out of the world cup now except a miracle happens. That is if England wins all of its matches and Pakistan beats South Africa with a hefty margin. Although nearly impossible, one can count on the lucky stars to shine for the Pakistanis.
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