Review of Pakistan’s performance in the ICC World T20 2012 – Part One
Since the inception of T20 Internationals, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 have been performing exceptionally well in the game’s shortest format. With most number of T20 victories (38), second-highest win percentage (60.93) and being the only team to have qualified for the semi-final
stage of all the ICC World T20s played so far, it will not be wrong to say that the Green Shirts have been the most consistent side in this version of the game.
Like all the previous editions, the Men in Green entered the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 in a three-match series
in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/United-Arab-Emirates-c3033 (UAE) just before the mega event, ringing alarm bells for the rest of the teams.
Some of the seasoned cricketers like http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Imran-Nazir-c64248 were recalled for the glamorous competition, with the national selection committee looking to extract the most from their experience. However, there were some strange exclusions
from the squad as well, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mohammad-Junaid-Khan-c77037 and Hammad Azam being the two most prominent ones as both of them have shown promise to deliver the goods in international cricket.
The Green Shirts started the event with a morale boosting victory over India in a warm-up fixture at Colombo; however, they failed to chase in a low scoring encounter against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/England-c56013 a day later.
Pakistan defeated http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Nasir-Jamshed-c78752 displayed his class in the match, scoring 56 off just 35 balls, in which he struck two boundaries and four
massive hits out of the park. The left-handed top-order batsman was named as the Player of the Match.
The Green Shirts displayed a comprehensive batting performance in their next match against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Bangladesh-c747, chasing down a huge total of 175 runs with some ease, thanks to a superb knock by Imran Nazir, who took the game away from the minnows.
However, their bowling looked vulnerable on a flat pitch as they should never have allowed the Bangladesh batsmen to score so freely.
With that win, Pakistan entered the Super 8 stage as the best team from group D. However, they had a massive challenge in front of them, being placed in Group 2 along with strong teams like Australia, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750.
In their first Super 8 encounter against South Africa, who were also among the tournament favourites, the Green Shirts tinkered with the team combination, going in the young left-arm spinner, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Raza-Hasan-c84407.
Pakistan bowlers delivered the goods against the Proteas, restricting them to merely 133 runs in the allotted 20 overs. However, their batsmen crumbled under pressure and had their team tottering at one stage, with seven wickets down for just 76 runs on
the board.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Umar-Gul-c94604 rose to the occasion at that stage and took their team out of trouble, helping the Green Shirts winning the match in the very last over.
Gul, who was struggling with the ball in the tournament, rose to the occasion and showed his batting potential. The lanky fast bowler struck three massive sixes over the leg-side boundary to snatch victory from South Africa’s jaws.
To be continued…
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