Stani Army

Was I the only one who thought Umar Gul was darn unlucky not to get the player of the tournament award? It went to Tillakaratne Dilshan for scoring the most runs in the tournament. But in a batsmen’s game, surely a bowlers achievements should be recognised more? Shorter outfields and flatter wickets; certainly it was easier to bat well than bowl well no?

Of course, Gul’s was not just any achievement but a record, a first ever 5-wicket haul in International Twenty20s with his spell of 5 for 6 in three overs against New Zealand. Maybe the ICC didn’t want a Pakistani clean sweep so decided to spread the awards out. It’s either that or Daniel Vettori must have been on the ICC judges panel.

The other issue I had was the fact that the next Twenty20 World Cup is going to be held in April 2010, meaning that we will not even hold the title for a year. I will not go over it in detail as to why as Q has done a fine job of this over at Well Pitched, but it all stems from the cancellation of the Champions trophy in Pakistan in 2008. I suppose it does make sense but it’s just sad we will probably be the shortest holders of the World T20 title

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With an emphatic win over Ireland, Pakistan do not now have to worry about run rates becoming a factor in qualification for the semi-finals.

Batting first, it was a weird kind of innings with Pakistan always threatening to charge but not quite getting away. Credit must go to the Irish bowlers, in particular big Boyd Rankin who gave a measly 11 runs off his four overs.

Kamran Akmal had another brilliant game both with the bat and with the gloves. With his 57 off 51 balls, it was the perfect innings for the batsmen coming in at the other end to have a go. Afridis 24 off just 13 balls was probably the other valuable innings because of his strike rate.

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Various views and opinions have been sought after the Lahore attack from the likes of David Morgan, Haroon Lorgat, Sharad Pawar, Justin Vaughan, Reg Dickason, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Dominic Cork, Angus Fraiser; all of them rightly showing concern for the Sri Lankan team and condemning the attacks but nobody thought of even mentioning the Pakistan people and the future of their cricket team except New Zealand’s captain Daniel Vettori.

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