Rival captains in contrasting moods after Pakistan’s thumping win in 3rd ODI
Pakistan and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754 camps were in contrasting moods after the third ODI at the AMI stadium in Christchurch, which the tourists won by a thumping 43 runs margin. The men in green who were down and out after the opening match, that they
lost by 9 wickets at the Westpac in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Wellington-c864, bounced back strongly to torment the hosts.
Pakistan was led by a brilliant maiden ton by Mohammad Hafeez, who finally made full use of another start at the international level to post his first ton in 61 ODIs, he held the innings together after the tourists had lost Ahmed Shehzad,
Kamran Akmal and Younis Khan, with barley 50 runs on the board. Hafeez added 90 odd with http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Misbah-ul-Haq-c1972 and set a launching pad which was brilliantly utilisied by Umar Akmal and Shahid Afridi in the last ten overs of the innings.
The Pakistanis posted 293 in their allotted overs, the hosts got off to a blazing start yet lost wickets at crucial junctures of the innings, and they ended their quota of overs at 250/9 handing a comfortable win to Shahid Afridi’s men.
New Zealand skipper Ross Taylor was disappointed with the batting performance of the team that gave in, after some impressive knocks at the top of the innings. http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Taylor-c92915 felt that the batsmen threw away their starts and that cost his team
the game. He also lauded the bowling effort of the Pakistan team, fast bowlers Umar Gul and Wahab Riaz were the ones who made the difference.
"We got a few starts but didn't go on. In the end we couldn't keep up with the rate," Umar Gul bowled well. He along with Wahab Riaz got some reverse swing on a pitch that broke up a bit in the end."
One the other hand, the Pakistani captain http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-Afridi-c2482 who struck a whirlwind 65 off a mere 25 balls claimed that the run making effort in the last few overs changed the course of the match. The man with the fastest hundred in the format and the best strike
rate over the length of a 300 match career struck 5 big sixes himself as he butchered his way to a 19 ball fifty.
The Pakistan captain, however, praised the efforts of his opener, "The way Hafeez started; he played like an experienced player. Misbah and Hafeez took the responsibility to ensure that we played 50 overs. We played mature cricket. Hafeez and Misbah took
time to settle, but we had wickets in hand and we could play the big shots."
Afridi would be hoping that his innings has done enough for him to seal his place as the captain of the team for the ICC World Cup, set to start in the Indian sub-continent next month. He has been under tremendous pressure in the last few games, the reason
is that the Pakistan Cricket Board is yet to announce a captain for the biggest tournament in the ODI format despite naming the squad some ten days ago.
Afridi and test captain Misbah-Ul-Haq are in the running for the post, most people in Pakistan as well as cricketing pundits from around the world feel that BOOM BOOM is the man to lead http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 in the pressure tournament where his aggressive style of captaincy
can lead the team to glory.
Misbah on the other hand is regarded as an astute student of the game but has a tendency to be negative at times, for Afridi though the effort at the AMI stadium is a perfectly timed reminder for the cricket think tank of Pakistan that he has the ability
to win games for them on his own.
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