1st VB Seires Final, Pakistan vs. Australia, MCG

[Maranello]

Spot on Shaka. Umpiring during the finals has been very inconsistent - shame that quality world-class cricket is officiated by third-class umpires. The real man of the match for the first final was not A. Symonds, it was S. Davis, the Australian umpire. Similarly today, Rudi Koertzen has carried on his tradition of atrocious decisions against Pakistan, and the TV umpire has joined in. Incompetent umpires I am quite happy with, and I know that everyone makes mistakes; however, when mistakes and wrong decisions from umpires always favour one team over another, questions must be asked about the consistency and motives of some of these umpires.

[Occasional Fan]

Bad luck to Pakistan there, who have come much closer to saving the match than I expected when they were four wickets down. Australia won by 31 runs. Congratulations to them.

[Shaka]

More or less a carbon copy of the first final. Pakistan bowling well, strangling the Aussie batsmen very successfully, Aussie bowlers hitting back with the new ball, and then Pakistan's middle order fighting hard to keep it interesting. Both matches have been well contested and it's been good, hard cricket. Australian professionalism probably the main difference as Pakistan have certainly been well placed enough to win both games but making some silly errors at crucial times during the run chase. Well played both teams though. The umpiring was not good enough and there needs to be a review of the makeup of umpiring teams when Asian teams play against Australia or England.

[Zainub]

Spot on Shaka, the umpiring was to be honest a bit inconsistent, but it wasn't the reason we lost, I will put that down to our shoddy top order batting.

I don't know what the wisdom was behind selecting Taufeeq Umar. Not that I dobt his abilties or anything, he's a bloody fine player on his day, but he's not had a lot of cricket off late, just 2 games in the entire tour. This was his first international match in 10 months, and suddenly he's out there opening the batting against Lee, McGrath and Gillespie in a must win match. He played a bad shot, but I'm not sure I'd be too critical of him, we've never given that lad a proper chance, the last time he was recalled in the side, it was in similar fashion (in the 5th ODI vs Ind, after he'd not played in any of the previous 4, and not played in an international match since April 2003).

We should have kept faith with Butt, or perhaps given Yasir Hameed a chance to open.

[Shaka]

We should have kept faith with Butt. He was a bit unfortunate with the decision in the last game, and Taufeeq was coming in cold which was a bit unfair. He's a good player though, I hope he doesn't get judged on this innings. I agree the umpiring wasn't the reason we lost (although it certainly didn't help!). Australia deserved the victory on the basis of their excellent fielding and bowling with the new ball which really put Pakistan under a lot of pressure, which we fought back well against both times. I would loved to have seen us take it to a final game as I think the top order was bound to fire sooner or later. Lots of pluses from the tour though, so not oo disappointed.

[Maranello]

You are right Shaka. in that Australia's professionalism was the main difference in the end. Their batting let them down in both the finals, and there were a few very un-Australian mini-collapses. However, two excellent performances in the field won them the VB series. Aggressive fast bowling, excellent fielding and attacking captaincy - all great to watch.

Pakistan fought well, and had two very good performances in the field of their own. Were let down by the top order batting, but the middle and late order showed plenty of fight on both days, which made for enthralling contests. Afridi has become Mr. Consistency at no.8, Rao Iftikhar bowled intelligently and effectively early on, and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan is a tremendous competitor with a big heart, and hats off to him.

All in all, a pretty good end to Pakistan's tour Down Under; in the end, Australia had too much class. Well done both teams.

[Zainub]

Yeah, you're right, Australia too strong for us in the end, at least we can be happy about the fact that we didn't disgrace ourselves and lose really badly, these were 2 close games, which with a bit of luck, perhaps could have gone either way. Any how, point here is, we can look forward to the future promisingly.

I'm confident we'll do resaonably well in India. Should be interesting to see what our starting line will be there. If Sami Ahmed and Shoaib are all fit (which they very well might be) who will we leave out, Rana and Rao to be honest, don't deserve to get the sack, they've bowled beautifily right through. A bit of dillema this then.

[Mike]

On the Shahid Afridi runout: 1) He paused after running the first single and only ran for the second because Abdul Razzaq was already coming for the second run. That slight hesitation cost his wicket. 2) If he dived he probably would have made it. 3) The video umpire took an age to make a decision which suggested plenty of doubt. Any doubt and the decision must favour the batsman. Poor use of the video replay and poor decision.

The commentary team were enthusiastic about Rana Naved-ul-Hasan's performances in the series. I was personally impressed by Pakistan's fighting qualities in the finals and if they can find the right formula to get through the first 15 overs without losing too many wickets they'll be very competitive against most sides. My formula would be "don't use the hook shot against the new ball and don't play premeditated shots."