Afridi's class. Fantastic interview at the end.
ICC Cricket World Cup 2011
- Thread starter The Taurean
- Start date
Bye bye Misbah. Bye bye Younus. Bye Bye Shoaib. Bye Bye Razzaq.
The final's going to be two great batting line-ups against each other. The Sri-Lankan bowling's probably slightly better but not enough to make a difference.
We've hade the Indian sign over them recently so hopefully that continues.
We've hade the Indian sign over them recently so hopefully that continues.
I hope India do win the WC.
Didn't finish 1st in their group, so didn't get a favourable QF match, had to face Australia. Ok so Australia are nothing like the teams of old, but they were still champs, until someone knocked them out. So a big emotional win over them, only to then have to face a Pakistan side, really high on confidence, and very much playing as a team. Tonight they've dispatched them too....
So it would be harsh to begrudge them their win in this WC, if they get over Sri Lanka....it certainly won't have been a easy path to the trophy.
Didn't finish 1st in their group, so didn't get a favourable QF match, had to face Australia. Ok so Australia are nothing like the teams of old, but they were still champs, until someone knocked them out. So a big emotional win over them, only to then have to face a Pakistan side, really high on confidence, and very much playing as a team. Tonight they've dispatched them too....
So it would be harsh to begrudge them their win in this WC, if they get over Sri Lanka....it certainly won't have been a easy path to the trophy.
Sri Lanka aren't a great batting line-up. It's a slightly shitter SA one. No balance. Heavily dependent on 3 players.
I hope Gambhir's fit for the final. If he's not fit, I hope we call Rohit in and play him at 5. Not Yusuf Pathan.
Not much wrong with that last sentence, zing, apart from it being slightly retarded.
I think given Dhoni's form we can't afford to replace Gambhir (if he's injured) with a slogger. Need a proper batsman.
Will India stick with the same bowling attack? I keep hearing about this Ashwin but I thought Nehra was very good today and would be unlucky to get dropped.
Congrats to India and Lanka for getting into the final. I think India'll win it. They'll be too strong for the Lankans. Then again, I suspect the toss will be very important.
Sri Lankans are dodgy feckers...probably the side I'd least like to face in a WC final. But still, we're high on confidence.
Slinga worries me.
Slinga worries me.
Don't count Mahela out...but on the whole you're right. They're very dependant on the openers and Sanga.
Raina's added that sting in the tail that Yusuf wasn't giving us. The batting line-up's nicely balanced now with Dhoni the only real weakness...and i'm not worried about him. he'll make his 20 or 30 and he'll make them reasonably quick.
If Gambhir's unavailable, its a pity but i'd rather someone like M Vijay than Rohit Sharma. he's been too inconsistent.
Slinga's good, he's like a baseball pitcher, though.
An interesting side battle in the final will be for the tournament top run scorer which is pretty much neck and neck:
Dilshan(SL) 467
Tendulkar(India) 464
Dilshan(SL) 467
Tendulkar(India) 464
I didn't see the game... were the Tendulkar drop catches..dollies or something?
Not real dollies, but they should have been taken..
You must be still be a bit miffed from being shown up for a feckwit the other day. So, er, bottled it a bit under pressure today didn't we?
So your idea is to play Pathan at 7 after he's failed in all but 3 of his innings?
Vijay's been inconsistent in the ODI team too. In fact, he has not many runs for the ODI team. I think Rohit's the best replacement, he got 2 centuries last year playing at 4 and plays spin very well. And he's played Malinga well in the past.
All that said, a bit premature. Hope Gambhir's fit.
BTW, I meant 3 players including Mahela. Wasn't including Tharanga. Lot of runs in this tournament, but he's hit a bit of a purple patch.
And why was Misbah playing a test match innings? It's better to burn out than fade away.
@ Spoony: I know your mainly on a wind up with your comments on Tendulkar but you have to hand it to him. In the twilight of his career, on the very highest stage and under the most intense amount of pressure, he is still leader of the pack and central to his teams chances of success. The man is a legendary icon in the entire field of sport.
Not dollies but catches that should be taken at this level, at least a couple of them. But that's Pakistan for you.
It's not as if we didn't miss chances btw. Yuvraj should have run Akmal out and Dhoni missed an easy stumping. You have to make your opportunities count. We did. Really proud of our bowling in particular.
Wash your mouth out. Quite a far cry from the sweet little southie urchin who signed up here aren't we.
not dollies, but at this level, very straight forward catches. And there were 4 of them!!! And he kept serving them up every 15 mins. It was a bizarre sequence of events. In fact, this entire match was a pretty bizarre sequence of events. I still have not gotten my head around it!
Yes, the discipline in the middle overs which caused frustration for the Pakistan middle order was particularly impressive. Zaheer and Munaf in particular were very miserly.
Nehra, not Zaheer.
Zaheer was our worst bowler today by a mile. Worried about that.
Munaf and Nehra were brilliant today.
We gifted you the tie mate. Its almost like you have the hoodoo over us in World Cup matches. It actually sickens me how we let ourselves go in this match. It was in our hands up until Hafeez' brainfart initially, and then the absoloutely ridiculous batting from Younis and Misbah. Even so, I had faith up until Afridi went.
And on Afridi, its him and Gul I feel for the most. Two of the most honest and Imandaar players on our team, who put their lives into this World Cup run for the country, and they were failed by pretty much the rest of the team besides Ajmal, Shafiq, and to an extent, Hafeez (only taking into account his contributions in the knockout stages) up to the QF, he was about as useless in a Cricket match as the desk from which I am typing this reply to you...). Our batting crumbled on a flat deck, sure it did a bit for the spinners, and it reversed a bit towards the end. But what about the middle overs? Yuvraj bowled so many half-trackers during the time he was on, that he should have been punished much, much more than the 57 he conceded. Absoloutely no accumulation from our middle order, something that Misbah and Younis were well-renowned for, I could say a whole lot more but I'd just be saying what many observers of Pak cricket have been saying for the last 18 months to two years...
Post-match, I can only say onwards and upwards. This match doesnt hurt as much as the T20 Final did. We came to this World Cup severely depleted and with half the side past their best, and the other half too young or too eratic. To get to where we did after a troublesome Summer in England, and a decentish time in NZ, we did well and we can hold our heads high. Pakistan has showed again, why the ICC cannot simply ignore the troubles in the country and has to make proper efforts to bring it back home. Otherwise, Cricket as a sport will suffer.
As a team, we desperately need two sound openers (which goes without saying) and to overhaul our middle order. Asad is a very promising player and needs to be persevered with, but other than that, we havent tried anyone in the ODI format. Azhar Ali looked technically sound in England, so he mightn't be a bad try in the ODI format
Our bowling is still our strength, but we only have ourselves to blame for us not having our best bowlers there.
Our fielding (minus today's showing) had looked very good in this World Cup, and Afridi's captaincy, while not perfect, was still shrewd enough, and to be honest, captaining such a talented side as ours, we dont really need a Khan, Border or a Illingworth. Just someone who is a calm presence, and Afridi has definately been that in the World Cup, besides his occasional brainfarts when he bats, but thats Afridi in microcosm, take his batting away and he'd be half the player, even if he has endured poor form with it.
Yeah it's always Pakistan who lose rather than being beaten. We were sharp and accurate in the field and more gritty in our batting. More bottle overall.
A very odd batting strategy in general from Pakistan.
A very very very odd innings from Misbah which at times was slower than Chris Tavare. Ditto Younis Khan.
Some very odd captaincy decisions from Afridi, esp when to take the powerplay.
I dont think there was anything underhand but no-one has no idea why Pakistan approached their innings the way they did (incl all the commentators as well as anyone who knows just a small amount about cricket).
sorry, I meant Nehra. Yes, he was excellent. Deserves to play in the final.
Yea, agree with most of that. Asad Shafiq looked annoyingly, worrying solid from an Indian perspective today. I think you're being a tad harsh on Hafeez, might not have delivered much earlier, but he's very talented.
I was seriously impressed by Afridi. Honest guy. If he cheats, he at least cheats to win, unlike Butt and his ilk.
Add Kamran to the list.
If Gambhir can't make it, bring in Uthappa!
And also why does Umar Akmal play at 7?
If he can keep a bit, then that would kick out his older brother out of the team and open the innings. He is more talented than Kamran.
If he can keep a bit, then that would kick out his older brother out of the team and open the innings. He is more talented than Kamran.
Why not just bring in Dravid.
The bowling for the final is a tough one. I'm tempted to stick with this. The extra spinner in Ashwin would be useful but the Wankhede isn't as helpful for spinners as some other pitches around India. With Yuvraj bowling pretty well and Raina and Tendulkar available as backups, maybe the extra quick would come in handy.
Umar, Hafeez are Pakistan's best players. Ahmed Shehzad is another incredible talent who'll be a fixture for many years. Pity Aamer got himself involved with the cheats - such was his talent he was on his way to achieving special.
The three M's, Malinga, Muralitharan, Mendis are central to SL's chances, if two of them are tackled well by the Indian batting, then I dont think the SL batting is all that good to match the Indian one.
Sharp and accurate in the field yes, probing and dangerous with the ball? No. It was an average display with the ball. Nehra, Khan and Patel kept it tight, but they never looked like getting a wicket. Younis, Hafeez and Akmal gifted you their wickets when there was little to no pressure on in terms of RRR. Up until that point, we were well in command of the situation.
Once those three went, you were facing an insipid Misbah and Umar Akmal who fair fecks to him, inspite of previous brash and erm "suspicious" innings, played well but then he had to play for two because of the non-entity that was Misbah at the other end. Once Umar went (to an admittedly good ball from Harbhajan). We were castrated by the increasinly high RRR, poor shot selection, and the presence of all-rounders and pinch-hitters. There was no reliable presence there past the 34 over mark, which is only our fault, because if the openers had played with their heads and occupied the crease at 4-5 an over for the first 15-20 overs which they were supposed to do, we probably would only have been 3 down at the most. Hell, Younis and Misbah could have played their little Mini-Boycott Innings to their heart's content and we still would have still made the target with plenty to spare.
Good fielding and good batting dont win you matches, but bad fielding and bad batting can certainly lose you them.
Uthappa? When did he last play for India? Was he even in remote contention for a slot in the squad?
