This series wasn’t as rubbish as I thought it would be. Although Sri Lanka, and the crowds, undoubtedly missed their superstars (Murali, Chaminda Vaas and Kumar Sangakkara were all in England), both sides put on an entertaining performance.Arguably, the series was one more-or-less single-handedly by Shahid “mad as a hatter” Afridi. In the first match, he crunched 73 off 34 to save Pakistan from certain defeat. This was followed by 3-37 off ten in the next game, helping skittle the Lions for 212. Somehow, he seems to hang on in the side.
The most intriguing element of this series was the emergence of the young’uns. Shoaib Malik seemed controlled and able as a captain. Playing a responsible 79 against all the odds. I told you he'd be good.
After ignoring my previous tips for World Cup greatness, the PCB decided to finally let Mohammad Hafeez have a bash. He lived up to my high expectations: scoring 34, and bowling 2-55 off ten. He’ll be the next Jayasuriya I tells ya.
For Sri Lanka, Chamara Kapugedera looked a bit, you know, crap. There’s now another Jayawardene but we won’t worry about him; he’s on his way out too. Malinda Warnapura also looked liked cricket’s incarnation of Atari – looks technical enough, but a rubbish once you start using it.
The Lankans attack also struggled with only Malinga.
When you write things like that, you wonder in the point of series like these. Don’t you? Or don’t you? Maybe you don’t care enough to continue reading.
Oh wait. You do.
Hey, you misspelled shahid's name in the tags.
ReplyDeleteThis series didn't really reveal too much about the Pakistani side. I was hoping they would go for the kill and win the series 3-0, but they opted to hand out debuts and experiment. Which is all well good, if the aim is to barely win a series.
but at this juncture, with a new team and new leadership, and facing a Sr Lanka B squad, i was hoping Malik would go for the jugular.
Anyway...I should probably post my thoughts on my own blog regarding this.
but yeah.
Bloody hell, so I have.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think Omar would comment on my site unless I left a few typos for him. That’s why there’s so many.
I think Pakistan were right to experiment. This series was a cricketing equivalent of a friendly. All the proper players had buggered off to Yorkshire or something, so it was left to the apprentices to mess about on their own. They did ok.
I’m a bit annoyed about Afridi doing so well. There’s something about him that offends me.
When your chaps were over her last year, his fast slippery action was hard to follow. Especially after a few drinks. Gives spinners a bad name, that sort of thing.