It was a nail-biting finish to what should have been an easy affair. Aussies elected to bat after winning the toss. They lost Twatto early, guess his muscles were still stiff. “Lloyd” Warner and Capt. Pup gave a solid start and they were 50/1 after 6 overs. Then wickets tumbled with White doing his massacre in style. DJ Hussey(40*) was the mainstay of the batting and steered them to a miserable score of 127. Pakistan bowling and fielding was top-notch and showed why they simply love this format of the game and why they are the T20 World Champions at the moment. Right from the wicket of Watson, the fielders were charged up. Wickets of White , Pup and Nannes can prove it. Bowling, after 6 overs was right on the money. Shoaib“I’m the Capt. Haha”Malik, Umer“I luv T20”Gul and Saeed“Side 2 Side”Ajmal tightened the screws.
Then came Pakistan batting. The openers were erratic and were out cheaply. It was nice to see Shaun"Sloon"Tait back in the side. His opening spell was just breathtaking. The line, length, pace everything was excellent. He was well supported by Dirty Dirk Nannes from the other end who was also pacy. Then came in Kamran"Butterfingers"Akmal and counter-attacked really well. Kamran stuck onto Johnson in his first over and then he came back nicely. It was a swashbuckling innings of 64 from just 34 deliveries. He almost led Pakistan to victory. He was dropped on 64 and unfortunately he was out the next ball. Wickets started tumbling from then on. The Australian bowling was just fantastic... Watson was useful too. The young lad, Steven Peter Devereux Smith was pretty impressive with his leggies. MOM was Sloon Tait for his 3/13 from 4 breathtaking overs.
Turning Point: Many may say that the turning point was the wicket of Kamran Akmal, but according to me, the 17th over bowled by Mitch Johnson, was the turning point. Rana Naved ate all the balls and got out the next over.
So, it’s been a " DEFINETELY FORGETTABLE TOUR " for the visitors. They must feel like eating cricket balls right now (If you know what I mean..) White washed !!
- 3-0 in Tests
- 5-0 in ODIs
- 1-0 in T20
Tait's opening burst was superb....160.7 Ks...was great to watch. Pakistan were the real favorites when the Akmals were batting. But as always they will somehow find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
ReplyDeleteAgreement on the match-turning Johnson over, you could see it in the air how the resistance was crumbling from that point on. Heartbreaking boundary at the end from Asif :(
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~ Play For Country Not For Self ~
Achtung hier kommt Morne!
@ Baiju - Tait is such an exciting cricketer. He gets whacked most of the times, but his pace is Awesome . If he can maintain the line n length with this pace , he can be a nightmare to batsmen :)
ReplyDelete@ Wes: The last ball boundary was of no use anyways, though the scorecard says they lost by 2 runs :)
Well I should maybe explain the Asif thing... It is always a bit hard for me to bear when guys like Asif, Hilfy, Danish etc come in and sort of try to bat. I will never get used to that. Well they have to but it is just so wrong haha. I find it hard to bear. It was just such a tragic minute. Now he has a pointless 4 on the board... a 6 was needed to draw, and he got a bloody boundary. Irony. Dunno how to say it. It was a moment of utter awwwwwwww, if you know what I mean.
ReplyDeleteFound a comparison! It is like Dr Tinycat!
Anyway,
for some reason I hadn't blogrolled you yet, fixed it.
Cheers :)
It was just a wild swing from asif. The ball just hit the meat of the bat, accidentally :) and flew to the boundary
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