The title pretty much summarizes our Twenty20 world cup campaign. This format really suited our unpredictable sometimes erratic but immensely talented squad.
This is the first entry to my blog and I swear this is not where I intended to start but I can not help thinking about this. This morning I made an effort to ensure that I would get a chance to watch the last quarter of the Twenty20 World Cup final between Pakistan and India.
When I got to the screen we were struggling at 83/6 but there was hope when Misbahulhaq hit Harbajhan Singh for three 6's and Sohail Tanveer followed it up with two more 6's and all of a sudden it all looked possible. Then Sohail lost his wicket and Umar Gul came and went in one swift motion. All of a sudden we were in danger of getting bowled out when we were 9 down needing 17 of 7 balls with Asif facing the last ball of RP Singh's over. Asif successfully edged a low full toss to the third man boundary. Now it was Misbah's turn once again to score 13 of the last 6 balls. Dhoni after much thought gave the ball to Joginder Sharma who started off with a wide and Misbah missed the next one. Joginder then managed to produce a slow high full toss which was hit out of the park by Misbah and we were inches away from the World Cup and Misbah was moments away from being the next star of Pakistan cricket. But the cricketing gods were to smile once more on the excitable south Indian man Sreesanth who took the catch off the next ball when Misbah was improvising trying to take advantage of the fact that fine leg was up in the circle and mis-timed it. We lost the tournament by mere 5 runs!!
Misbah was on his knees and the big screen read "India T20 Champions" yes we loved it but we had lost it. Its going to be few hours before the fact sinks in. Although I am thousands of miles away from home but I can feel what would be scenes back home tonight it is a disappointment T20 style.
In the past week there were many comparisons drawn between this T20 Championship and the world cup in 1992 which we did win. The fact that both were played in the Holy month of Ramadan, that we beat New Zealand in both Semis (although we beat the Kiwis in 1999 Semis too) and that we went in as the underdogs. All of that has become irrelevant now.
Some of the experts were thinking that Pakistan has now got consistency in their performance winning 5 of their 6 in the build up to the final, but I must say losing the first 3 wickets in the first 5 overs in every match is not the kind of consistency you would want. Then we had flamboyant Younis Khan, the hard working Shoaib Malik, the controversial selection Misbahulhaq and the X-factor Shahid Afridi who is more likely to boom boom with his bowling then with his batting these days. We won matches by some great bowling performances and batting by Misbah and Shoaib. Lets face it we would have been extremely fortunate to have won the world cup because this was not much of a match winning batting line up. Their talent has never been disputed but ability to handle pressure ?? I am not so sure about that, because we did win against Bangladesh and New Zealand but we almost made a mess of the chase towards the end.
Most of the matches that we won in the past 3 years were due to batting performances by no. 4 to 7 but now we don’t have the services of Inzi and we don't think Yousuf and Razzaq are good enough to play this format of the game. Kamran Akmal has been out of form for ever now fumbling miserably behind the wickets and struggling to score runs playing miles away from his body, I am sure he would be wondering what he needs to do to finally get dropped from this team.
All this meant that we did not have the strong middle-lower order needed to consistently support the ever failing top order.
However, there were many positives:
Sohail Tanveer: I guess he is a great find who should be around for a while before anyone attempts to change his bowling action.
Misbahulhaq: Who should be able to serve Pakistan for a year or two at least bearing in mind that he is 33.
Umar Gul: He has emerged as consistently good he should be a real asset for Pakistan in the 50 over game with his ability to bowl the last overs.
Shoaib Malik: Though his batting talent is limited, at the moment he is doing well as captain.
Negatives, there were plenty as well:
Salman Butt: He is definitely topping the list, Butt is not even half the batsman he was when he broke onto the scene as a 19 year old who scored a second innings ODI century against India at the Eden Gardens.
M. Hafeez: With his batting always seems to be in form and promises a lot and never delivers.
Imran Nazir: He made his debut in 1999 but refuses to mature as a batsman.
Yasir Arafat: He was thrown into the final without getting any games in the tournament, not his fault though.
Fawad Alam: The promising young lad from Karachi was ignored for most part of the tournament and then underutilized.
Kamran Akmal: We all know he needs to be rested for sometime, if it is too harsh to drop someone not performing at all.
In the end we did very well to make it to the finals and I hope there would be no more controversies for a while (although I know there is a thing called Shoaib Akhtar waiting at home), in the end its just a game and we enjoyed it.
Thank you Team Pakistan.
This is the first entry to my blog and I swear this is not where I intended to start but I can not help thinking about this. This morning I made an effort to ensure that I would get a chance to watch the last quarter of the Twenty20 World Cup final between Pakistan and India.
When I got to the screen we were struggling at 83/6 but there was hope when Misbahulhaq hit Harbajhan Singh for three 6's and Sohail Tanveer followed it up with two more 6's and all of a sudden it all looked possible. Then Sohail lost his wicket and Umar Gul came and went in one swift motion. All of a sudden we were in danger of getting bowled out when we were 9 down needing 17 of 7 balls with Asif facing the last ball of RP Singh's over. Asif successfully edged a low full toss to the third man boundary. Now it was Misbah's turn once again to score 13 of the last 6 balls. Dhoni after much thought gave the ball to Joginder Sharma who started off with a wide and Misbah missed the next one. Joginder then managed to produce a slow high full toss which was hit out of the park by Misbah and we were inches away from the World Cup and Misbah was moments away from being the next star of Pakistan cricket. But the cricketing gods were to smile once more on the excitable south Indian man Sreesanth who took the catch off the next ball when Misbah was improvising trying to take advantage of the fact that fine leg was up in the circle and mis-timed it. We lost the tournament by mere 5 runs!!
Misbah was on his knees and the big screen read "India T20 Champions" yes we loved it but we had lost it. Its going to be few hours before the fact sinks in. Although I am thousands of miles away from home but I can feel what would be scenes back home tonight it is a disappointment T20 style.
In the past week there were many comparisons drawn between this T20 Championship and the world cup in 1992 which we did win. The fact that both were played in the Holy month of Ramadan, that we beat New Zealand in both Semis (although we beat the Kiwis in 1999 Semis too) and that we went in as the underdogs. All of that has become irrelevant now.
Some of the experts were thinking that Pakistan has now got consistency in their performance winning 5 of their 6 in the build up to the final, but I must say losing the first 3 wickets in the first 5 overs in every match is not the kind of consistency you would want. Then we had flamboyant Younis Khan, the hard working Shoaib Malik, the controversial selection Misbahulhaq and the X-factor Shahid Afridi who is more likely to boom boom with his bowling then with his batting these days. We won matches by some great bowling performances and batting by Misbah and Shoaib. Lets face it we would have been extremely fortunate to have won the world cup because this was not much of a match winning batting line up. Their talent has never been disputed but ability to handle pressure ?? I am not so sure about that, because we did win against Bangladesh and New Zealand but we almost made a mess of the chase towards the end.
Most of the matches that we won in the past 3 years were due to batting performances by no. 4 to 7 but now we don’t have the services of Inzi and we don't think Yousuf and Razzaq are good enough to play this format of the game. Kamran Akmal has been out of form for ever now fumbling miserably behind the wickets and struggling to score runs playing miles away from his body, I am sure he would be wondering what he needs to do to finally get dropped from this team.
All this meant that we did not have the strong middle-lower order needed to consistently support the ever failing top order.
However, there were many positives:
Sohail Tanveer: I guess he is a great find who should be around for a while before anyone attempts to change his bowling action.
Misbahulhaq: Who should be able to serve Pakistan for a year or two at least bearing in mind that he is 33.
Umar Gul: He has emerged as consistently good he should be a real asset for Pakistan in the 50 over game with his ability to bowl the last overs.
Shoaib Malik: Though his batting talent is limited, at the moment he is doing well as captain.
Negatives, there were plenty as well:
Salman Butt: He is definitely topping the list, Butt is not even half the batsman he was when he broke onto the scene as a 19 year old who scored a second innings ODI century against India at the Eden Gardens.
M. Hafeez: With his batting always seems to be in form and promises a lot and never delivers.
Imran Nazir: He made his debut in 1999 but refuses to mature as a batsman.
Yasir Arafat: He was thrown into the final without getting any games in the tournament, not his fault though.
Fawad Alam: The promising young lad from Karachi was ignored for most part of the tournament and then underutilized.
Kamran Akmal: We all know he needs to be rested for sometime, if it is too harsh to drop someone not performing at all.
In the end we did very well to make it to the finals and I hope there would be no more controversies for a while (although I know there is a thing called Shoaib Akhtar waiting at home), in the end its just a game and we enjoyed it.
Thank you Team Pakistan.
