Waqar Younis salutes brilliant Umar Gul
A stunning bowling effort by Pakistani pacer in the third ODI against England at the Oval has drawn accolades from the head coach and legendary fast bowler Waqar Younis who himself was one of the greatest exponents of swing and reverse swing bowling at lightening
speeds throughout the 1990’s.
Umar Gul nipped 6 English batsmen for a mere 42 runs in 10 overs to revive memories of the golden period of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Wasim-Akram-c96292 fashioned out some remarkable wins from the point of no return through their vicious reverse swing
that used to be too much to handle even for the greatest batsmen of that era.
When Gul started the 39th over, England needed a mere 42 runs to win with 5 wickets in hands. In an outstanding over, the man from the frontier sent Morgan back before castling new comer Tim Bresnan with a late in swinger that sent the off stump
cart wheeling.
He then accounted for Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann on the last ball of his spell, to cap off a remarkable spell that started with him leaking 10 runs in his opening over.
Gul soon followed that by removing Andrew Strauss and Michael Yardy within the space of a few deliveries to keep the series alive.
Meanwhile Waqar labelled it a team effort, yet singled out Gul for his outstanding achievement.
"[After making 241], there was no way for us to bowl 50 overs and win this game. Our only chance was to bowl the English team out - and we've done that. Shoaib Akhtar was important too, because we really needed early wickets, but this wasn't a fluke. The
boys really played well in a team effort, and the entire thing was what we needed."
Waqar, the master of reverse swing, opined that Gul’s action was pivotal in him extracting late movement at a very lively pace that touched the 90 mile mark at times.
"One big reason for his reverse swing is that he's got an action that really helps," said Waqar. "He also does a lot of practice, which really makes him a good reverse-swing bowler, especially at the death with his yorkers because you have to know how to
manage them."
Waqar added that Gul’s performance was the tonic his team needed and now they were in the right frame of mind and are set to put the hosts under immense pressure in the last two games of the series.
"After the two losses, we really needed something like this," said Waqar. "The series is still alive, and this gives us the incentive that we can come back and maybe win the series now. It's been a really tough tour on the field and off it, so we're pretty
pleased to be back in this one-day series, but there's still plenty of work to be done."
One hopes that Pakistan continue to show the same kind of team spirit and motivation that made them bounce back from the dead at the Oval. It is evident that under http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-Afridi-c2482, they are gelling into a capable ODI unit despite suffering a sequence of defeats.
The encouraging aspect is that during all the ODI’s, the team has fought hard - a trend that started in the Asia Cup in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758 where they lost two out of the three matches, yet fought tooth and nail and were unlucky to have ended at the wrong side.
In the present series, they batted with great determination to challenge England’s total in the opening match before succumbing in the last over of the second tie at Leeds.
Tags: