Stani Army

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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Pakistan take the last spot of the super eights with a very comfortable win over the Netherlands.

Though Pakistan did reach a total of 175, the batting was not as easy as it seemed. The Dutch came back very well in the middle of the innings with Pakistan taking 43 balls to go from the 50 to 100. Credit to the Dutch, the boundaries dried up and Pakistan were left nervous, needing to bowl well to secure their last eight place.

The Pakistan fielding was still poor. Why Salman Butt is still being persisted with I do not know. It’s the same old issue of players being picked because of seniority. He was guilty of a dropped catch again just like in the previous game whilst all the players went for catches looking like they did not believe they’ll catch it. When Borren hit the ball in the air for the catch Butt did actually take, the silence from the rest of his team mates rather than shouting “catch it”, told us everything.

Another mistake by Younis was not to take off the injured Tanvir for a sub. Why not bowl him out and bring on a sub fielder or take him off without bowling him out? Tanvir let one four go and possibly two half chances which, against a better side, could have cost us the game.

As we said on Stani Army yesterday, its the spinners that made the difference as much for their lack of pace as for their spin as the Dutch had to use their feet and so it proved. A world class performance from

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