| Turning the tide |
|
|
| Written by HW SquadStats | ||||||
| Monday, 29 October 2007 | ||||||
|
There is this story of a man who was cursed with having to hold a spinning crown of thorns on his head. He would be released from the curse the moment he could find anyone else who would be willing to take over his burden and wear the crown. In a story running on somewhat similar lines, South Africa have managed to transfer their tag of chokers on to Pakistan, atleast this once, managing to beat them from a point where loss was all but certain, and winning the decider to take the series 3-2.
Pakistan's primary set of problems was with their early bowling. The opening bowlers had, so far, conceded too many runs and left the spinners to do more than their fair share of damage control. Akhtar's inclusion helped sort that out as he marked his comeback with excellent figures of 4 for 43 off 9 overs. Anjum (3 for 45 off 10), along with Afridi and Rehman did what they have been doing through the series, and were instrumental in once again relegating the South African middle order to a collapse, knocking them over for 233, a total built primarily thanks to a good start, with Gibbs (54 off 61) and Kallis (84 off 130) coming through. The thrills, however, were reserved for the second innings. South Africa's spinner, Johan Botha, had proved to be largely ineffective through the series, and it was left to the seamers to cover the losses on wickets that didn't exactly suit them. This, however, they did fantastically well, reducing Pakistan from 199 for 4 to 219 all out, Nitni (4 for 61 off 9) and Albie Morkel (4 for 44 off 8.3) causing the most damage. Pakistan's frailities - their overdependence on Yousuf and Malik with the bat - cost them the game and the series. With neither going to score a match-winning knock (a solid 53 from 88 from Yousuf wasn't quite enough), the rest of the batsmen couldn't raise their game on the day, and succumbed to the South African pressure. Through the series, both sides had been operating on 3 or 4 out of their 11 cogs. The final game always looked like it would be decided by which of the two supporting casts turned up on the day, as it eventually was.
Powered by JoomlaCommentCopyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.Homepage: http://cavo.co.nr/ |
||||||
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
