Cricket Tournaments

After the Sydney fiasco Pakistan had rung in a lot of changes. It was “just the usual” in the Pakistan camp with controversies over the selection of keeper-batsman Sarfraz Ahmed.

The board sent Sarfraz Ahmed and was staunch on their stance of wanting him to play. Meanwhile, Mohd Yousuf was in full favour of Kamran Akmal playing. As it panned out Akmal was left out leaving Ahmed to make his debut.

For the third time in a row Ponting won the toss and chose to bat again. Critics questioned whether Ponting was still good enough to bat at number three.

Only Ponting was confident in his abilities and a day prior to the test spoke out and maintained he is still the best batsman at 3 in his country. Ponting was having one of his worst home seasons.

He was about to change all of that. Australia lost Katich pretty early in the piece. In came Ponting; a wonderful reception from his home crowd.

Mohd Asif bowled a pretty decent bouncer to Ponting early on only to be dropped by Mohd Aamer at fine leg. Ponting had – had his moment. This was it.

His first fifty was one of the worst one could see Ponting at; nudges plays and misses and also getting hit on the head by an Umar Gul bouncer. Ponting survived all of that.

He then looked as flawless as ever. The drives were back, the pull was back—RICKY PONTING WAS BACK! Ponting went on to score a critic answering 209. He added 300+ with Michael Clarke who hit 166. Australia declared at 519.

Pakistan were off to a decent start before Farhat poked at one away from his body. Pakistan then lost 3 quick wickets and were left reeling at 84 for 4. Salman Butt (102) and Shoaib Malik made (58) the only sizeable contributions as Pakistan were bowled out for 301.

Katich made up for his first innings score by registering his 9th test match century. Ponting too resumed from where he left off in the first innings and the duo set Pakistan a target of 438. Pakistan collapsed for 206 with Khurram Manzoor making 77.

Australia had ended another season on a high.
5 wins out of 6 test matches—pretty satisfying. They would be hoping to replicate the same next time they are back on home shores.

What can Pakistan take out of this series?

Pakistan’s new found youngsters—Umar Akmal and Mohd Aamer—Umar Akmal confirmed in Australia –the trailer (in New Zealand) that his movie was to be a box office hit. On the other hand Mohd Aamer seems to be improving with every match and “fall”!
Pakistan have found back the old Mohd Asif. He is back to his swinging best and put on display a wonderful spell of bowling at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

Pakistan seem to have found a steady opening partnership at last in Salman Butt and Imran Farhat.
Note: Pakistan could surely do without their careless running.

Ricky Ponting roared back to form with a superlative double hundred and Michael Clarke registered his highest Test score of 166 as Australia looked set to hand another whitewash to the helpless, self-destructive Pakistanis, two days into the third and final Test at the Bellerive Oval in Hobart.

Replying to Australia’s mammoth first-innings score of 519 for 8 declared, Pakistan kicked themselves in the foot to have themselves struggling at 94 for 4 at the end of the day’s play. Things looked slightly positive when Imran Farhat and Salman Butt added 63 for the opening wicket. But everyone, including the Pakistanis themselves, knew that this was just the calm before the storm.

The destruction mode was set into action when Farhat, on 38, chased a wide delivery from Peter Siddle, who has been Australia’s least effective bowler in the series.

The result was a simple catch, accepted gleefully behind the wickets. In the same over, Khurram Manzoor, the new number three for Pakistan was also sent back by the Aussie pacer. Manzoor, went for a cut shot way too early in his innings and only managed to slice one into the slips.

With two wickets down, Pakistan were already in the doldrums. But the sorry part was that the worst hadn’t yet arrived. The last two dismissals of the day must have undoubtedly given Butt a horribly sleepless night.

Skipper Mohammad Yousuf wanted an extra run and was rather adamant about it. However, Butt had other ideas and simply refused to complete the run. The end result – Yousuf was stranded short of his crease for just 7.

Not surprisingly, he left only after a long stare at Butt which literally translated into – how dare you do that to me? But , Butt wasn’t done! He meted out similar treatment to Pakistan’s best batsman in the series, Umar Akmal.

The talented youngster wanted a single. However, while Butt responded initially, he back-tracked at the last minute and Akmal had nowhere to go but head back to the pavilion.

If Pakistan want to make a come back into the game now, Butt will have to play a miraculous knock with plenty of help from the others. But for that, he will first need to get over the horrendous mix-ups.

Before the Australian bowlers, it was the Ponting-Clarke duo that made it Australia’s day. The duo, which had come together after the Aussies had lost three early wickets, ended up adding 352 runs for the fourth wicket.

This was Australia’s sixth-highest partnership for any wicket in Tests. Runs came thick and fast. The Pakistani fielders once again aided the Aussie batsmen. Ricky Ponting, who was dropped by Mohammad Aamer on naught on the opening day, got another reprieve on 167, when Farhat dropped a chance at cover. The miss only epitomized Pakistan’s woes.

The grand Clarke-Ponting stand finally ended when Danish Kaneria cleaned up Clarke from around the wickets, the batsman padding up. Ponting left after scoring 209, caught by Yousuf in the cover off Aamer while trying to up the ante.

Brad Haddin and Marcus North notched up cameos before Australia declared and the bowlers took over. Ponting knew he had enough to trouble Pakistan. And he was proved exactly right.