The only way Pakistan could qualify after England’s victory was to win the game with a margin of 300+. This herculean task would have taken a miracle to say the least. As Pakistan faced Bangladesh in their last match of the tournament, everyone almost knew Pakistan were all but out of the World Cup.
Many pundits believed that Pakistan would play the game into the hands of Bangladesh because of the insurmountable work to be done. But the way they approached their batting was nothing short of class. As a professional side, they recognized they weren’t going to get to a total over 350. They assessed the conditions beautifully and adjusted according to it. Imam-Ul-Haq between the innings talked about how the plan was to analyse the conditions and be practical. They didn’t try to fire their way to a total just to lose plenty of wickets in the process.
In the end, that proved beneficial for Pakistan because they understood how the deck was playing, and set a total of 315/9 after 50. Imam- Ul-Haq and Babar Azam putting up stand-out performances in the first innings with 100 & 96 to their names respectively. It was a challenging task for Bangladesh because the wicket was slowing up a touch and that meant that the Pakistan spinners were always in the game.
But to everyone’s surprise, it was a 19 year old PACER Shaheen Shah Afridi who demolished the Bangladesh batting order. He took some prized wickets up front with the new ball, and put dents in the middle order of the team batting second. His conventional out-swingers, mixed with smart changes in pace made life difficult for the Bangladesh openers. Even though Pakistan have been knocked out of the WC, they looked mighty impressive in their last few games to pull things back. Let’s all hope as Cricket fans that they’ve found their core of players who will go on to make Pakistan cricket steady and successful.
-Vibhor Dubey
The Average Cricketer 