Pakistan have finally done what they have been promising to do for a very long time. Anyone who have followed the Pakistan cricket for any length of time knows them to be a very talented side with great chances of doing really well in major competitions, but who have been continuously letting their fans and admirers down with their unpredictable and erratic performance.
This is very much like career graph of their Knight in Shining Armor for the tournament, Shahid Afridi, whose form and performance has often mirrored that the team.
Some of the reasons that I think why Pakistan won the Cup are as follows:
1) First and the most obvious reason is Shahid Afridi's form and the spectacular return of Abdul Razzak.
2) The inspiring performance of their ballers', especially, Umar Gul, Shahid Afridi, Saeed Ajmal and the fast balling find of the tournament, Mohammad Aamer. In all fairness, it was the ballers' who won them the tournament.
3) The captaincy of Younus Khan and the often overlooked batting and wicketkeeping of Kamran Akmal.
4) Some untimely errors from the more fancied opponents.
5) No weather interruptions which kept Duckworth-Lewis method from impacting the result of the game like it did for England.
6) The early departure of India from the Tournament. After all, it was India who had defeated Pakistan last time, and Pakistan has never beaten India in any world cup fixtures before.
7) The much improved fielding performance from Pakistan, and the visible unity, passion and the enthusiasm to win shown by the Pakistan team, which was not visible for some years. The infighting in the team was nowhere to be seen, maybe brought on by the sense of bonding that was enthused by the trying circumstances in which they entered the tournament.
8) One of the biggest reasons was the massive support that the Pakistan team enjoyed. The supporters acted as a 12th Man on the filed.
To be honest, as far as i am concerned, Pakistan winning the World Cup didn't come as much of a surprise. They were one of the outside favorites from the very beginning after, India, South Africa and Australia.
And Yes! I still consider India to be the best T20 side in the world, and a better all round better Cricket team than Pakistan, but I have to say, Jo Jeeta Wahin Sikander. Well done Pakistan!!!
8 comments:
The one point I would like to disagree with the author of this post is on India being the best T20 side in the world. Yes, on paper, the team surely look like world beaters in T20, but we have always underperformed so far in the newest form of the game. If you look back at the inaugural edition of the World T20, we won the finals only because of that horrendous scoop shot that Misbah had to offer. The difference there was very marginal. Even in that match in which Yuvraj famously smacked six sixes off Stuart Broad, our bowling attack leaked 200 runs.
Its easy to say in hindsight that Pakistan deserved to win the championship but if one looks back, their journey in the super eight stage was fairly comfortable given the fact that they had to face Ireland, an associate team as also the fact that New Zealand had their key players nursing injuries and the kiwis neither had enough depth in their attack nor any big hitters lower down the order to compete against major teams. It wouldn't be incorrect to state that it was only Afridi who gift wrapped the tournament for Pakistan with 2 back-to-back performances in the semis and the finals. All in all, Pak is still quite heavily dependent on the boom-boom factor to click for them to win.
must say Gaurav, great insights...can't disagree.
Welcome back saif, was wondering where u disappeared? anyways wonderful insights from u. though wont comment much coz cricket is as difficult as understanding surds and trigonometry for me
Gary, i have to agree and disagree. India on its day can beat anyone, and has more match winners than any other team.
But I got to agree that India's bowling leaves a lot to be desired. A numbers of the top line bowlers although hugely potent is out of form, including Harbhajan, Ishant, and Irfan. So, like i have said in the article, it is the bowlers that won the World Cup. But, India's bowling connived with an over confident batting, intertwined with unimaginative and sometimes misguided captaincy to dump India out.
However, I am sure India will bounce back. It will only take one match to turn things around. And the upcoming series in the West Indies is an ideal opportunity for us to regain form, but we have to be careful of a storm, i mean, Gayle, which threatens to blow us away.
Coming to Pakistan, Pakistan batting is very dicey. Even more so when you consider that their best bet now seems to be the undependable Shahid Afridi, who has more often than not flattered to deceive.
But the possible return of Mohammad Yusuf augurs well for the team.
But, Pakistan are the Champions, and Champions they remain. So, hail the victors!!!
Yeah, you are right Gaya, cricket can take some years to gauge out. I have invested most of the life to figuring it out, and in fact still have a tough time deciphering it. I guess that's what makes it a great sport. But never be too short of opinions Gaya. Express and Explore is what i say!!
@ Shybu Bhai...
Having potential to be world beaters and actually being world beaters are two different things. India still have a lot of work to do in T20. And as we all know, our team has always been inconsistent. It has always promised aplenty but when it comes to delivering during crunch situations, we fall flat more often than not. Under Dhoni, we have been a little more consistent than under previous captains but that's also because the standard of other teams has dropped considerably. If one looks at bowling attacks of other teams, it is quite pale in comparison to the late 1990's and early 2000's when the likes of Donald, Pollock, McGrath, Simon Doull and whole lot of other bowlers used to break the backbone of our batting lineups.
If you look at the trend of our performance since the 2003 world cup, we peak in one season, hit high gears in the second season and then fall flat in the third season owing to injuries and lack of bench strength. Lets hope that this world cup was just an aberration and we come back hard against West Indies in 3 days time.
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