By Suneer Chowdhary
A shocking display with the ball in the field by Pakistan was followed by an abject surrender with the bat as New Zealand beat them by 110 runs at the newly laid Pallekele Stadium near Kandy.
Published: Mar 08, 2011, 10:17 PM (IST)
Edited: Mar 08, 2011, 10:17 PM (IST)
With the new ball swinging under the lights at the new stadium and the bowlers getting sufficient bounce on the track, not too many of Pakistani top-order stood a chance
By Suneer Chowdhary
Pallekele: Mar 8, 2011
A shocking display with the bat and in the field by Pakistan was followed by an abject surrender with the bat as New Zealand beat them by 110 runs at the newly-laid Pallekele Stadium near Kandy. Chasing 303 for the win, Pakistan lost four wickets for 23 and then, after a brief middle-order resurrection, were bowled out for 192.
The win put New Zealand at the top of the table over Pakistan, who also have six points from four games but with a worse net run-rate.
New Zealand’s total of 302 was not a very difficult task in this day and age of batting-made-easy by a variety of factors. What made it tough for the Pakistani side was the fact that they had been shell-shocked only minutes earlier by one of the better innings in World Cup cricket played by Ross Taylor.
With the new ball swinging under the lights at the new stadium and the bowlers getting sufficient bounce on the track, not too many of Pakistani top-order stood a chance. Tim Southee had one to nip back to Mohammad Hafeez and trapped him lbw, Ahmed Shehzad was out similarly to Kyle Mills before the same bowler flattened the Younis Khan off-stump for a duck.
Three balls later, Kamran Akmal’s awful day behind the stumps had culminated into a worse one in front as he edged one to Ross Taylor in the slips and Pakistan had lost four for 23. Incidentally, it was Taylor who had been dropped twice by Akmal.
After Misbah failed to repeat his consistency of the past, it was left to some lusty hitting from Umar Akmal (38) and Abdul Razzaq to shave a few runs off the target. Umar Gul’s partnership with Razzaq raised hopes of a repeat of a Kevin O’Brien-like recovery. Only in 2010 had Razzaq played a similar knock against South Africa to win Pakistan the game from a virtually no hope. However, there was too much to be done and despite Gul’s reasonable effort with the bat, Razzaq’s dismissal for 62 was enough to seal the deal for the side.
When the Kiwis batted, for the first 44 overs of the New Zealand innings, the batting had scraped hard for crumbs. A score of 225 looked just about within reach but they needed something special to get to 240. With a struggling Ross Taylor and Nathan McCullum at crease, Daniel Vettori would have been hopeful of getting there.
Instead, New Zealand got to 302. The worst over of the last six went for eight. The best had 30 taken off it. The other four yielded an average of 19 per over! Taylor, who had limped to 65 in his first 100 balls, and had been afforded a couple of lives before he got to five, got his last 66 runs off 24 balls only. And the mid-wicket was peppered with some of the biggest sixes in the tournament. Suffice to say that it was an assault of the worst kind for the bowlers.
Earlier, Martin Guptill had scored a quiet half-century but Brendon McCullum and Jamie How had departed for a sum total of 10 runs. Kamran Akmal dropped Taylor early on two occasions in the same Shoaib Akhtar over, but even then, it did not seem like the mistake would end up as costly as it finally did. Later, Scott Styris was also missed by the wicket-keeper to make Sydneygate of 2010 seem like a distant memory.
However, at 188 for five in 44 overs, New Zealand needed a major push to set Pakistan something competitive. Taylor’s bludgeon in the disguise of the bat allowed for much more.
Brief Scores: New Zealand 302 for 7 in 50 overs (Ross Taylor 131*, Martin Guptill 57; Umar Gul 3 for 32, Mohammad Hafeez 1 for 26) bt Pakistan 192 all out in 41.4 overs (Abdul Razzaq 62, Umar Akmal 38; Tim Southee 3 for 25, Nathan McCullum 2 for 28)
(Suneer is a Mumbai-based cricket writer and can be contacted at suneerchowdhary@gmail.com and Tweets here @suneerchowdhary)
Pictures © Getty Images
