Pakistan vs Sri Lanka
Group B Match - Champions Trophy
I couldn't chose a better time to start off my blog than with the Champions Trophy. Yesterday's game between Sri Lanka and Pakistan was an awesome one, and a game the critics and fans have been finally waiting for, after a series of low-scoring and one-sided affairs.
Personally, I felt that it was always going to be a tough one for Lanka. Even though they have won ten games on the trot before this one, reaping heaps of praise, they were against relatively weaker oppositions: England (having a terrible time in the one day scene), Holland, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and West Indies (very inconsistent). I knew it that once Lanka were going to face a tough team will it be a test of their true potential. After this loss, there are some problems Lanka will have to look at:
- Why have 4 fast bowlers in the team when the pitches are more suited to spinners? Also I felt that we had too many bowlers, resulting in us only having 6 specialist batsmen. Pakistan had batsmen all the way till number 8. That was what made a huge difference for sure. We needed one more batsman, or an all rounder, preferably one who can bowl spin, like Chandana or Arnold. Mahroof and Vaas are termed as all rounders, but Vaas hasn't really delivered lately in the One day format, and Mahroof had just one good game against the English when he made a 5o on our recent tour there. Thus, i say that we either need one more batsman or all-rounder who can bowl spin. And I would drop Dilhara from the team, because he is just too expensive and really needs to do something about his "no ball" problems.
- Why did we bat first? It is well known that the dew factor was going to be tough on the bowlers during the second innings. True that batting second has been tough on these pitches in earlier games, but I still think that we should have batted second, because it wasn't like we wouldn't have been able to bat well in the second innings, considering that the pitch was like the ones we find in Colombo.
- We didn't bat well at all during the latter half of our innings. The first 5 batsmen all made starts but never went on to make a big score. In earlier games, a batsman always made a hundred to post a decent total on the board. Yesterday wasn't our day with the bat.
Hats off to Pakistan, who put all the controversies and problems that have surrounded them in the last few weeks behind them successfully. It looks like they are back in action, and if they keep playing like this they will definitely be a tough contender in this tournament, after having started off as underdogs, especially after their two fast bowlers were sent off, in addition to the absence of Inzi.
The Pakistani celebrations in the end said it all. For the Lankans however, we need to re-think on out line-up and bowling options. To me, that's the main glitch we need to repair, because I think that we had finally met our match.
Turning point of the match:
To me, it was the drop catch of Razzak. Had Dilshan taken that, then the tail was coming in and we would have had the match in the bag. I don't know how Dilshan, one of the top fielders in the world, dropped it, but that was definitely one catch that was badly needed.
My Man of the Match:
Razzak played his part, but i thought that Shaoib Malik should have got the award. He took two mid-order wickets, while three of Razzak's were tailenders. And Malik's innings was so composed and he stayed till the end to ensure that Pakistan would go home with a win. True that razzak blasted his way out in the end, but if Malik hadn't stayed there the whole while, Pakistan may have lost the battle. His performance was over-shadowed by Razzak's and I felt that he deserved recognition for it.
My final Say:
Sri Lanka need to win the next two matches to have a chance to go to the next stage. Pakistan needed this win to keep them back on track, but they are very inconsistent, so it will be interesting to see how they fare in the next two games.
