Stani Army

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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Pakistan set the tournament alight with a brilliant victory over a very good New Zealand side.

The game marked the return of Abdul Razzaq to the international side and his breakthrough early in the New Zealand innings was vital in what was to follow and thus cannot be underestimated. He had a good day with the ball (2 for 17) although he didn’t get going with the bat; still not being able to play spinners the poor sod.

The star of the show was obviously Umar Gul with his record breaking figures of 5 for 6. It was the first time anyone has taken a 5-for in International Twenty20. Amazingly, he was on a hat-trick twice but never managed to convert either. In his interview after, he spoke of working on the yorkers and slower balls with coach Aqib Javed and said that he watched videos of Waqar and Wasim and boy did it show. Those figures will take some beating, and the fact that he is also number 3 and 7 on the Twenty20 best figures list, shows it wasn’t just luck.

Afridi was once again mesmeric with the ball and took, in our opinion, the best catch of the tournament so far.

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Pakistan came unstuck in their first game of the super 8 stage. The difference between the two teams was the manner in which each began their innings.

Pakistan’s pace men were guilty once again of giving the opposition and lightning start. Instead of going for glory, they need to bowl economically and not put pressure on their team mates. They should have been intelligent enough to realise the wicket taking role of our spinners in this tournament and thus complimented them by bowling tight and creating pressure. The Sri Lankan pace men, though slower, bowled excellent line and length and put our batsmen under pressure, causing wickets to fall. It made the difference in the end.

Though Gul did take two wickets, this was later in the innings when the ball was older. He should recognise this and bowl accordingly i.e. conservative new-ball first spell, attacking old-ball second. We must give credit to Aamer who showed the more experienced men how to bowl. With Razzaq back in contention

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With Pakistan searching for a home to host Australia next year, the minnows of Ireland and Scotland are emerging as favourites. It has been banded about that one of the reasons for this is that it would help the minnows get more competitive cricket. Pakistan has done a lot for smaller nations in the past (Sri Lanka, Bangladesh) and still is with Afghanistan and China, but the simple reason that the PCB would go for Ireland or Scotland to host their matches is cost.

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