Pakistan did not do any magic to win the first semi final match. All they had to do was to wait and watch South Africans choke their way to a usual loss in an important encounter. No individual person was responsible for the loss from RSA; rather it’s the entire team which found its way to fall short of the chase by 7 runs.
Earlier in the first innings, they did everything right to restrict Pakistan to a score below 150. After a fantastic start provided by Afridi, who after a long time contributed with the bat. Younis Khan, as a captain puts high price on Shahid Afridi’s batting abilities and its really working for them. After such an innings, Pakistan’s score should have crossed 160 for sure. A brilliant bowling at the death by South Africans made sure that they have to chase an easy target of 149.
South Africa started off really well with Jacques Kallis finding boundaries at will and Greame smith rotating the strike and providing Kallis all the strike needed. One bad shot selection by Smith ensured he mistimed a pull shot into the hands of bowler. Shahid Afridi struck twice in the following over to get rid of Herschelle Gibbs and A B De Villiers cheaply. Herschelle Gibbs had no clue to the delivery from Afridi which picked his off stump. I have to say, the shot made the ball look stupendous. Gibbs played for the leg spin; the ball went on straight and beat the defense of his bat. A B De Villiers pulled the ball onto his stumps.
Then came the worst effort possible; the partnership between Kallis and Duminy was a match losing effort. They both decided in the middle that they should hold wickets in hand for Boucher and Morkel to come and finish in the end. What they could have done is rotated the strikes over and keep the score board ticking along. It was sad to see them pushing the required rate over 10 and no big shots all the while.
One could attribute such a run chase to nothing else other than CHOKING under pressure.
Other Semi final definitely promised a better clash before the match was actually played. Sri Lanka won the toss and T. Dilshan had a completely different plan compared to the rest of his team. The wicket was not at all conducive for the batsmen to play attacking shots. Jayasuriya got out after scoring 24 runs from 37 balls. That tells us the unfriendly nature of the wicket better than anything else. Dilshan is in top form for almost a year now. In the recently concluded IPL tournament and till now in the world cup, Dilshan is topping the batsmen’s list.
Though there were hiccups in the middle overs, Dilshan together with Chamara Silva and others ensured that they took the score past 150 mark. If that was for better, best was yet to come, when Mathews picked up three wickets in one over. All were clean bowled (Got to be kidding): the funny aspect was, it had got nothing to do with pace of Mathews, rather couple were inside edges and one off the pads onto the stumps.
Once they were 3 down for only one run, Chris Gayle was fighting a lone battle and even Chanderpaul and Sarwan could not help Gayle with their talent. Finally when they got all out for 101, the required rate was 13 runs per over and it was humanly impossible to achieve that. Muralidharan picked up 3 wickets and Mendis picked up two wickets.
Its Sri Lanka Vs Pakistan final on Sunday. Sri Lanka is better placed to lift the cup. But Pakistan definitely wants to prove a point to ICC by winning the tournament after the Terror attack episode in their country. They will come out hard on Sri Lankans. It will be an interesting final, though not equivalent to interest created for an India – Pakistan encounter. At this time, I am remembering India – Pakistan last T-20 world cup.
Thanks,
Prashy.
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