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

[Zainub]

Peter English writes (here) an excellent preview for the first final of what could possibly be the last VB Series. Please use this thread to discuss that match as it happens, and any pre/post match comments. Thank you.

Originally Posted by Peter English

That Pakistan have a chance of stealing the best-of-three conculsion from Australia, who haven't lost a home tri-series finals competition since 1992-93, is a relief to an ailing concept. ... The tournament needed a boost after Australia's dominance in the early stages and there are predictions that this could be the 26th and final tri-series as Cricket Australia consider all of their sponsorship, television rights and scheduling arrangements. Four-game head-to-head contests appear to be the preferred option and will save tired touring teams from two months of cross-countrying. A three-match finals series would not be a huge loss as it is usually a soporific anti-climax. The last time a decider was needed, Steve Waugh's Australians climbed past South Africa in 1997-98, and Adelaide will know after Sunday's second final at Sydney if it gets an invitation for Tuesday. After a month of rotating and resting, Australia will at last pick their A-list, and if they sing at full voice, Pakistan deserve a standing ovation merely for taking them to a third stage. However, if Inzamam's glowing army can muffle their opponents, a rare finals shock could be a possibility. Whatever the result, Pakistan's better health is something to toast.

The human spirit cannot be paralysed, as long as you are breathing you can dream (said so Mike Brown) and I can and will dream . If we get off to a decent strat a 260+ total could be all but certain such has been the form of our middle and lower order combined. And the bowlers, well, its fair to say they are no world beaters, but if we stick to the basics, we'd definately have a chance. Having said all that Australia have a repo of raising their games significantly when it comes to crunch time big matches, the numbers of times Ricky Ponting has scored big runs in tournament finals or otherwise high profile games is something that should scare our bowling attack. I will still be positively optimisitc though of causing an upset. Here's to us, may we have all the luck in the world!

Common Pakistan!

Finally, on a rather sad note, I will want on to pass on my belated condolences to Rana Naved-ul-Hasan and his family. His father, Rana Mehdi Hasan, aged 60, had been suffering from a lung infection and passed away during the Aus-WI match at Perth. The burial took place on Wednesday in his home town of Sheikhupura. Naved's mother had asked her son not to return home, but to continue on the tour and take part in the finals.

It is quite startling indeed that two members of our side have suffered such major personal losses over such a short period of time. I sympathize sincerely with both him and Younis Khan who after last Sunday's victory over Australia flew home to attend the funeral of his father Yousuf Khan, and was said to be "shattered" as he departed from Perth Airport.

It is very brave and praiseworthy decision Rana's mom has made to ask him to play the finals. I think she might have realised how badly he would have been missed by the team, and may be the fact that perhaps her husband, may his soul rest in peace, too would have wanted him to do well. Having said that it would have been completely understandable had he decided to do other wise and go back home early to attend funeral and other services, and spend this sad time with his closed and loved one. I wouldn’t have complained, not even in my wildest dreams.

I can hardly imagine how sad he must be feeling right now, so my out most sympathies go out to him. I hope we wear black arm bands in the first final to show solidarity with both him and Younis Khan, I hope that Australia join us too. I certainly will try and remember them in my prayers.

[Zainub]

Boy, oh boy, three inspired bowling performances in a row, Bob Woolmer will be on cloud nine right now! I'm so pumped up right now I can barely get this smile off my face, don't even mention how difficult I'm finding it to not get carried away. Australia won the toss and decided to bat, they got off to a poor start (53-3 at one stage) to get tot 190-3 in 40 overs with Symonds and Martyn both well set, and I was getting bad memories of Wanderers in the World Cup 2003 and Lords last year...but boy, did that change quickly or what, Australia lost 7-48 in 9.1 overs and now we're only left with 238 to get. Very good bowling from all the guys, no one bowled badly and we we pulled of a couple of absoluet stunners in the field.

Razzaq was the pick of the lot though, with 3 crucial wickets of Katich, Symonds (of consecutive balls) and later Shane Watson (caught extremely well at deep long off by Mohammad Hafeez, again at a very crucial stage). The big wicket for him, and for the whole team as a matter of fact was that of Symonds, he got out in the 46th over, for an extremely well made 91, had he been there till in the end, Australia would have definately got more than 237 all out, that too before batting out their complete 50 overs. But the big collapse really was intially triggered by Afiridi whose bowling once again proved to crucial - he picked up 2-50, and although those are slightly expensive figures by his usual standards both his wickets came at a time when we needed 'em most - in his last over, and of consecutive deliveries, he got Martyn stumped for 53 to end a 137 run 4th wicket stand with Symonds and then Lehmann was caught behind extremely well for a golden duck by Kamran Akmal after Boof played an ugly reverse sweep to get Pakistan right back into the game.

After Razzaq had removed Symonds and Katich of consecutive balls shortly afterwards it was only a matter of how long we would take to mop up the tail or if Australia could finish with a flourish - we did our bit fairly well, and despite a 13 from Brett Lee Australia will feel they finished well short of the target they'd be hoping to get with the position they were in with 10-15 over left to go. Earlier in the day, Michael Clarke (plumb LbW for 9 off Rana) suffered a rare failure opening the batting with Gilchrist as Australia opted to drop out of form Matthew Hayden. Both he and Gilchrist survived confident LbW appeals and one dropped catch each before finally running out of luck. Gilchrist was picked by Khalil, as an absolute gem was plucked virtually out of thin air by Abdul Razzaq. Standing at a slightly deepish midd off position he jumped up a wee bit from the ground and stuck out his wrong hand (he's a nutral rightey) and it didn't stick in the middle of his hand, probably got more into his fingers, but he held on superbly, as all his team mates and Gilo, and indeed even he himself looked back at it on replays in utter disbelief. Rao's inswinger to Ricky Ponting proved too good for the Aussie, as he was bowled neck and crop even when he appeared attempting to play a forward defensive - perfect sight for a fast bowler that, I'd want full size photo of that in my room if I were Rao Iftikhar. He's bowled wonderfully in the last 3 matches without much luck, and he thoroughly deserved this wickets every inch.

Anyway, all credit to us, I'm delighted with the way we've gone about our buisness in that innings, good captaincy by Inzi today, good over rate even, and very good body language by the whole team generally speaking, there seemed to be a lot self belief in the lads out there, lots of positive anticipation of wanting to make things happen. We didn't panic that much with the Symonds-Martyn partnership, and went by the old ploy of drown the runs and wickets will comes. Marytn's wicket was almost as if we were attempting to buy it from him, he'd attempted a simialar short to that one the over before he got out of Hafeez, but that time Akmal was defied by bad bounce, he missed a difficult stumping chance. Martyn was still pretty eager to keep on trying that shot down the ground, eventually he was beaten well by a clever peice of bowling from Afridi. It seemed over all to me, that inspite, the rub of the green not exactly in our favor (we'd seen a few cathces going down and a few appeals here and there could have gone either way) we kept our cool and didn't let us the bad luck factor affect us too much. There was a clear game plan out there we had, and we remained very focussed. It was good to see. Having said all that, the job is only half done now. The pitch is bit slower than usual, and the out field is not the fastest I've seen at the MCG, which is understandable after all the rain there off late, so 237 might still be a very good total to set, we'll have to bat well. Australia will be coming hard at us one has the feeling, it certainly won't be easy by any standards, but we're in form, and we've chased well all season, we've given our selves the best chance we possibly could have. Should be cracking second half, as was the first.

Common Pakistan!

[Mike]

Commiserations Zainub and Pakistan. Pakistan made Australia work hard for their win and can take a few positives out of the game. Unfortunately, Pakistan are vulnerable with their top order and early wickets cost them the match. The target of 238 was gettable with normal one-day batting but Lee bowled some unplayable deliveries to get the openers out and then Inzamam and Malik skied a couple of shots to get caught just when they had clawed their way back into the game. This gave the lower order no option but to throw the bat at everything with the predictable fall of wickets. Inzamam, in the post match interview, is still upbeat about Pakistan's chances to square the series in Sydney.

[Paoli]

Turned off the radio at 165/8 and was surprised to see such a tight finish...If only Shahid had've batted more sensibly.

[Zainub]

Afridi needed support, he's never going to last more then 4-5 overs at best, what he needed was someone setteled batting on the other end, he didn't have that. Abdul Razzaq's run out was also a massive turning point as far as my opinion is concerned, it was a brilliant piece of fielding, but poor comunication and more so, extremely poor judgement, you don't want to test the skill of people like Symonds, Clarke and Ponting, these guys are excellent in the inner circle, and they would hit the stumps more ofthen then not, there was no run there. With Razzaq already out it made Malik press the panic button and he got out playing a shot he could have easily avoided.

But I agree, the top order collapse was what cost us the match, the Inzi-Malik partnership brought us somewhat back into the game, but it was always playing up catching up after losing 4 wickets to the new ball. When I look back at those wickets, I will say only 2 of them were down to good bowling, the others were basically poor shots or wrong placement. Youhanna got bowled off a Brett Lee ball that kept a shade low, he was unsettled by the previous ball (a bouncer) and it made him get struck in the crease a bit. That was a good piece of bowling. So was the Salman Butt dismissal, that was a very good inswinger he got, it would have got out many a good batsmen in my opinion.

But then, Salman Butt has got of the of boil a bit in the one-day series, and he's constantly got troubled by the ball that's moved into him, he's got work to do before the next final, and he definately owes the team a few runs. Kamran Akmal played a very good shot of an ok ball from McGrath, the irony here being, before playing the shot he didn't know that Dizzy Gellispie had moved a bit squarer at fine leg, just perfectly positioned to take that catch right down his throat. I wish for once our players had a look at were the gaps were before they get set up for batting, even Inzi got out in a similar way.

Mohammad Hafeez's shot was down right disgusting, I don't know how come all the compulsive pullers and hookers of the world get into Pakistan, first it was Imran Farhat, before him was a lad called Imran Nazir, and now Mohammad Hafeez. Is it really sooooooooooooooooooo difficult to realise that if you can't play a shot properly, you're better off not playing it at all until you learn to master how to play it well in the nets? Surely temptation can't be that hard to resist as we make it seem at time.

PS: Congratulations to Shahid Afridi on setting the new world record for hitting the most sixes ever in limited overs internationals history, his tally of 190 sixes has now over taken the previous best of 186 by Sri Lanka's Sanath Jayasuriya.

[Shaka]

A real missed opportunity for Pakistan this one. I missed the bowling effirts which are getting better and better, and also the top order which got blown away not unexpectedly to be honest. I was disappointed though to see us get things back on an even keel just to toss the game away again. When Shoaib Malik and Inzimam had rebuilt the innings, The Aussies were in trouble and brought Brett Lee on to try and get a breakthrough. To see Inzimam pull a short ball staright to deep midwicket and hand them a way back into the match was a real sickener as at that stage a run a ball was all that was required and the singles were there for the taking. Razzaq then compounded the error offering a run out chance which was duly taken by Symonds who must have thought Christmas had come early. There followed a brief period of fireworks where Shoaib Malik and Shahid Afridi provided a spectator's dream team, both launching sixes at will. It was good to watch but as both are decent batsmen I don't know why they felt they needed to go at it so early with so many overs left. I think Malik should have aimed to stay till around the 45th over before going hammer and tongs, especially with Afridi at the other end.

A win here was very much there for the taking and would have set the finals up beautifully, as it would be good to see the Aussies under a bit of pressure. Oh well, on to the next one. Good to see the bowlers beginning to show some form anyway. Well done to Rana as well, it took a lot of courage to play after such a big loss.

[workkey]

and not to forhet rao with the ball...very good figures...9-1-26-1

[Zainub]

Yes, not to forget Rao, or any of the bowlers for that matter, we did a very good job over all as a bowling unit, and the batting too, even with its dissapointments, showed enough promise collectively to keep me really positive and up beat about the 2nd final. Sydney should be another good game. Hopefully we'll level 1-1 and take the series to Adelaide. Fingers crossed.

[Occasional Fan]

Oh, dear! It's that man McGrath again, tearing through Pakistan's top order. McGrath 6 overs and three wickets as I right, Pakistan 42-4 chasing 240. I wouldn't be putting money on a game in Adelaide, I'm afraid.

[Shaka]

Interesting run out decision given against Shahid Afridi by the third umpire. After several close up replays none of the commentators seemed sure whether he'd made his ground or not and in instances like this I would have thought it's a pretty safe bet to give the benefit of the doubt to the batsman. Not too surprised it didn't happen though...the umpiring throughout the series has smacked of old boy network, Bowden and Taufel the honourable exceptions.