Australia Vs Pakistan:ODI 30th January.

[Ernest]

Pakistan have beaten Australia details http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cric...al/4218119.stm .
Well done to Pakistan,also well done Abdul Razzaq who took 4-53.

Good all round performance to beat Australia.

[Shaka]

Better balanced attack IMO, with Rao and Khalil in for Hafeez and Azhar Mahmood. I think Pakistan has enough batting down the order to stick with this line up although I suspect Khalil will make way for Hafeez. Prsonally I don't think Hafeez has had enough impact as a batsman, and Khalil is a better bet with the ball for me. Obviously the experiment to play Younis Khan as a wk will be ditched , you can't afford to drop players like Gilchrist and hope to get away with it every time.

[freddie_flintoff]

Great win for Pakistan, well done!

[Zainub]

I don’t think we quite played at our best today, our fielding continued to be well below international standards, and we must count our selves lucky we did just enough with the bat and ball to not make those errors cost us a result. As like in most of our wins, we were served well by individual brilliance, a few guys really just took it away from Australia by virtue of some special performances.

Abdul Razzaq was a thoroughly deserving man-of-the-match recipient, taking 4 wickets when he probably could, and should have taken 6 [or 5 at least] had our fielding been any better. With the bat, he stayed out there to finish the job and be there in the end, after others had thrown away good starts to take us to a particularly memorable victory. He bowled very well indeed, batted with great maturity as well, and its a delight to see him do justice to his true potential, if only he could do this tests as well.

Credit must also go to Shahid Afridi who not only took two wickets for not many runs but also made a 13 ball 30 that changed the pace of the match quite dramatically. He has been in superb six hitting form this series, and with the lack of penetrative/experienced options in our bowling attack he has rendered an admirable and thankless job with the the ball, not to mention his fielding is a breath of fresh air considering our otherwise lowly standars in that particular facet. If Afrifi continues to shine with bat, ball and in the field in the remaining matches, which I'm hoping will also include a best of 3 finals clash against Aus, he give Aus's Michael Clarke good competetion for the man-of-the-series prize.

On a side note, Younis Khan's father Mohammad Yousuf Khan has passed away in Mardan today (may his soul RIP), and according to reports I have read when Younis was informed of the sad news shortly after our win was completed, he was completely "shattered". He is expected to leave for Pakistan on the first flight available, my deepest sympathies to him and his family. He did a decent job for us in the test side, and showed promise that he could be one of the men to stablise out batting in future. I hope that for once, he makes his place in the team a permenant one. For the meanwhile, my sympathies to him again.

His selection today seemed absymal, seemed to put undue pressure on him too. I've never been a supporter of part time wicket keepers, be it in the case of Rahul Dravid or Marcus Trescothick, the idea, even for a 50 over games seems not right to me. It would have been understable had Younis been doing keeping before in this tour, in at least side matches, but he hasn't handled the gloves for a while, so this sudden out of the blue idea to drop Akmal and give Khan a try seemed all the more questionable, even more so when Woolmer has been telling fans on his websites all this while that neither him or Taufeeq Umar (the other part time wicket keeper in our squad) are reluctant to keep. I would think it must have not done a whole lot of good to Kamran Akmal's confidence either, who he has kept brilliantly all tour, and batted usefully as well.

Other wise, there were the usual suspect problems; dropped catches, shoddy top order batting, Inzi making yet another start and not converting, ditto for Youhanna. The bowling though, looked very promising, it was nice to see an improvement in the extras column. I also noted that we improved on our death bowling today, it seems we had learnt our lessons well after the Lara on slaught in Adelaide, there were plently of full length bowls, and no way near enough bowls to swing your arms and have a go at it, like there were many in Adelaide, I would give credit for this to the coach, Bob Woolmer, who obviously must have realised that. It was heartenning to see the players responding this quickly, that has not always been the case in the past.

I would also strongly agree with Shaka on the front of dropping Mahmood for a specialist bowler, Razzaq and Afridi alone make our lower order batting one of the most dangerous in the world right now in my (humble) opinion, so we're better off giving our bowling a better over all chance (and look) by playing a specialist seamer in Mahmood's place, whose batting so down the order really isn't needed anyway with Razzaq and Afrid in such good form them selves already.

Over all, even though we can improve our performance, I'm delighted with this result, it is always a great feeling to beat a world champion side, especially when it is on their home ground, and especially when that ground is the WACA, were we have lost so badly in the tests in all our cricket history, and especially if it is the first dose of success you have had against Aus in nearly 3 years - as I said, and as many could see from our reaction when the winning runs came, this was a special, and memorable victory, that will no doubt do our confidence a lot of good before of the virtual semi final against West Indies.

Common Pakistan!!!

[Shaka]

Originally Posted by Zainub Razvi

I would also strongly agree with Shaka on the front of dropping Mahmood for a specialist bowler, Razzaq and Afridi alone make our lower order batting one of the most dangerous in the world right now in my (humble) opinion, so we're better off giving our bowling a better over all chance (and look) by playing a specialist seamer in Mahmood's place, whose batting so down the order really isn't needed anyway with Razzaq and Afrid in such good form them selves already.

I think you mis-read my comment Zainub, I actually said we have enough batting lower down the order for us to go with specialist bowlers. I think Rao has bowled well last couple of matches, and Khalil took two important wickets at a crucila time today. Both justified their inclusion ahead of Hafeez and Mahmood I thought. Rao should have had 3 wickets but for dropped catches and Khalil nailed two dangerous lefties in Katich and Hogg.

My condolences to Younis Khan on the loss of his father btw. He's had a decent tour IMO. I think he only was played as a wk today as an experiment as the result wasn't likely to make any difference to who goes through. Akmal was always going to play in the final match against the Windies.

[Zainub]

In which case too I agree, Mahmood has easily been out bowled by both Khalil and Rao, and as far as Hafeez's contribution with the ball goes, he is meant to bat first and make runs and then get wickets, any bowling succes is supposedly a bonus.

I don't quite agree with the timing of this experiement (wrt to wicket keeping I mean), why now, at such an important match, if my calcualtions are correct we wouldn't have had a chance of making it to the final had we not won today, seemed like an odd time to go for an experiment to me, really strange.

[Shaka]

Even if we had lost, as long as we beat the Windies in the final match we would qualify. As it is winning the game still hasn't changed that equation. If we lose we are out if we win we are through. Today's result was immaterial unless we had got a bonus point....which would mean thrashing Australia which was unlikely. I think the experimenting worked great and we found out quite a lot in the circumstances.

[Zainub]

May be it just seems strange to me because I'm a bit skeptical when it comes to using part time wicket keepers, I don't think I would want to see that happening in the future.

[Paoli]

I will start on a sombre note with extending my condolences to the Khan family (I'm not sure if you use first names or last names in Pakistan) but Pakistan management have said Younis is shattered. It is good that he is going home at this time.

A great win anyhow. Razzaq was at his best. 4/53 with the ball and a lovely 63 not out with the bat. Afridi played one of the most vital knocks of his career with 30 off 13 which severely got the run rate back. His 2/45 was very good. Mohammed Khalil looks very good with the ball. In ODIS anyway.

[Maranello]

Firtly, respects to Younis Khan and his family, and prayers for his deceased father. Younis Khan is an anamoly amongst Pakistani cricketers, in that he is a true team player, someone who always puts the team before the individual.

A good result for Pakistan, though as Shaka has pointed out, it was a meaningless encounter in terms of who plays the finals. This was known since the Pak-WI game, hence Pakistan did the right thing and experimented a bit.

Originally Posted by Shaka

Better balanced attack IMO, with Rao and Khalil in for Hafeez and Azhar Mahmood.

Shaka, Rao played the previous game (against WI) too. The three changes Pakistan made were: Khalil (for Azhar), Yasir (for Hafeez) and Younis (for Akmal). All three were good innovative moves, giving three guys a go who had not played at all in the VB series - this is good since it brought some fresh impetus and ideas, and changed things up a bit. The right approach for a 'dead rubber'. The Younis Khan as w/k experiment did not work out, he was not able to contribute with the bat either hence would have been dropped for the next game even if he was in Aus.

Pakistan's bowling was a lot more purposeful in this game for the entire 50 overs, in the previous one they became wayward when Lara got going. The ground fielding was very good and there was a lot of hard work and enouragement in the field. Some poor dropped chances though, and shocking to see the younger guys, and the allegedly "good" fielders such as Shoaib Malik, Salman Butt and Yasir Hameed all drop easy chances.

Batting relied a lot on individual brilliance after the early hiccups, but Youhana did look very good whilst he was there. Malik was unfortunate to be run out yet again, and Abdul Razzaq did well, batted with great responsibly in taking the side home, something he had not done on a few recent occasions.

All in all, a good performance, should restore confidence, and shows that the team are not 'chokers', so can bring home their advantage and complete a win. Bowling is still a worry, Rao and Rana are both good new ball bowlers, but they need to take wickets, otherwise the back-up bowling looks exposed.