The Australian train was derailed yesterday by none other than Pakistan, perhaps the most unpredictable team in the history of cricket. Shoaib Malik won the toss he put the mighty Australians in to bat first. In a game like Twenty20 it is always a benefit that a strong batting team has to bat first as they have no idea what score to target or how the pitch is going to behave.
Australian openers have been sensational in their past couple of matches, but so have been Mohammad Asif and Sohail Tanveer. Tanveer, who probably had his best match of the tournament, picked up 3 key Australians wickets - Gilchrist and Hayden in his opening spell and Hussey in his final spell. Gilchrist, Ponting, Symonds, Hussey and Hodge got starts but, except for Hodge, none of them went on to stay till the end and that probably made the difference between victory and defeat.
With 165 runs to chase from 20 overs, the game was very much on. However, Australia has one of the best bowling lineups even without Glenn McGrath or Shane Warne, and Pakistan soon found that out when they were 46-4 from 6.4 overs. The fans would have their hearts in their mouths as the match was set for Shahid Afridi’s antics. However, that was not to be as Shoaib Malik and Misbah-ul-haq put together an unbeaten 119 run partnership to seal the match.
For the full article click here
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment