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In a tournament only one team gets the ultimate glory the rest of them come home empty handed. Unfortunately Pakistan’s world cup campaign was cut short by a dominant Indian team.

The nation is divided and confused that should they accord a warm welcome to their heroes for making it to the final four and barely missing to reach the final stage or should they hold the culprits accountable who didn’t put up a fight and handed over the match in a silver platter to their opponents.

The opinion is divided, a lot of people are sick and tired of the match fixing scandals as they bring more humiliation to the nation then a mere defeat, majority in Pakistan doesn’t want to hear about any match fixing allegations or any sort of corruption associated with their team. Then there are people who think that qualifying for the Semis and topping the group was a major achievement given the turmoil the team faced during the last four years, the team already exceeded the expectations of everybody.

India started the game with a lot of aggression, Sehwag gave his team a flying start, It was Gul’s second over both him and Afridi had a mini chat after which they decided to change  the field and left only two fielders on the ON side, I am not sure whose brilliant idea it was Afridi’s or Gul’s but both were in it, the next three deliveries were bowled on Sehwag’s pads which he flicked to the unprotected boundary with effortless ease. Why Gul bowled on the pads when he had just two fielders on the leg side???? But wait it gets even worse, Afridi after the third boundary decided to react to situation and placed two more fielders on the ON side and by doing so he created gaps on the off side. Gul realizing that On side field is plugged gifted two deliveries wide and short outside off stump so that Sehwag can easily find the boundary, bowlers usually bowl according to field but Gul was in the mood of giving gifts to Sehwag.

In his first over Gul moved the ball away from the batsmen twice which showed that there was movement, even Razzaq in his first over moved the ball but in his second and third overs Gul for some odd reason was not holding the seam up right  but from cross seam, why he did that only he can answer.

I don’t want to take any credit away from Sehwag he still had to find the gaps and put away those balls for boundaries. 

But as for Gul all I can say is that it was highly un charecteristic of him for not using the seam properly and not taking enough protection on the on side, he didn’t use the bouncer or his yorkers when Sehwag was slaughtering him.

The commentators kept on saying that this pitch is as flat as a cemented pitch but that wasn’t the case Razzaq moved the ball so did Wahab Riaz and the Indian bowlers.

Next up was Wahab Riaz, the damage was done or (the job was done) after 5 overs India were 47. The easy runs given by Gul provided the Indians a cushion to bat slowly when the spinners were introduced. Wahab and Saeed Ajmal brought Pakistan back into the game. Wahab got rid off Sehwag but two successive third umpire decisions went against Pakistan, Tendulkar was LBW plumb in front of wickets but the Hawk eye showed that the ball was missing the legstump, I am not sure how this technology works but the predictive path shown by hawk eye was all bull shit the blue line had a kink in it, I am not sure why it was there do they allow some degrees of turn for off spinners but that curve or kink was unexplainable. The very next ball Tendulkar got stumped by Akmal but once again the third umpire decided it too quickly it was a close call and a mattter of just one frame but if one looks at the shadow of the stumps the bails were off and Tendulkar’s feet was still not completely grounded. But anyways it was a close call and it had to go in favor of the batsman.

Afrter this Pakisan dropped four catches of Tendukar, looked like that Pakistan team were desperate to allow him to make his century, the first culprit was Kamran Akmal, the second one was Misbah, then Younis and Umar Akmal. Fielding is not Pakistan teams strength but dropping easy catches of the same batsman by three of your best fielders should raise eyebrows especially when there was a lot of bets placed on Tendulkar scoring a 100 against Pakistan and with each dropped catch more people betted in favor of the him scoring a century.

Wahab Riaz got two wickets on two consecutive deliveries and brought back Pakistan in the game the run rate had already dropped, but Afridi eased the pressure on Dhoni by spreading the field and not having close in fielders, he didn’t gave Ajmal a slip which was criminal, The fielders who were in the circle were placed  way to back and easy singles were given to the Indians at this stage. If he had applied more pressure Pakistan could have restrained India around 230.

India managed to set a target of 260 to Pakistan due to a fine knock by Raina in the end and once again poor bowling by Umar Gul at death who kept on bowling full tosses in his last spell.

Given the nature of the pitch and the fast out field 260 was not a huge score for Pakistan they just needed a solid start and had to accumulate in the middle and had to preserve wickets.

The openers did a fine job they gave a decent start Pakistan were 44/1 after 9overs Kamran Akmal  was the first one to go getting out in his usual manner slicing a square drive staright to a fielder. Plenty of batting was to follow, people hoped that in this match either Razzaq or U Akmal will be sent up the order  if the openers got out early but Afridi follows a default template, the moment Shafiq came in the runs dried up for a few overs, In the next 7 overs Pakistan just scored 26 runs and lost another wicket.

Hafeez batting at 43 had a brain fade and attempted a paddle sweep to a ball which was way outside off stump and was fuller in length and threw away his wicket, he had hit seven crisp boundaries and was scoring freely, but this has been a highlight of his career he always scores a nice 3o and then becomes too overconfident and plays a stupid shot.

It would  be unfair if I do not praise Munaf and Nehra here, they bowled beautifully moved the ball both ways and kept the batsman guessing their line and length was immaculate which makes me wonder why Gul couldn’t move the ball.

Pakistan were 70/1 after 15 overs and Inida were 99/1 at the same stage exactly 29 runs a head which eventually became the margin of defeat.

 Even after Hafeez got out the match was evenly poised the fans hoped that Younis Khan who is the best player of spin in Pakistan will play a grinding knock alongwith Shafiq and will take Pakistan to a strong position but Younis left all the burden of scoring on young Asad Shafiq and Younis kept on wasting precious overs on the other side, The pair scored 33 runs from 8.2 overs out of which Younis scored only 11 runs and faced 24 balls, Indian bowling was tight through out this period but Younis Khan took no initiative and put a lot of pressure on the young batsman on the other end. Eventually Shafiq feeling the heat  tried to cut a straight delivery from Yuvraj and missed it completely and got bowled at 30. Pakistan were 103/3 after 24 overs, the run rate was climbing and they needed to accelerate a lot of responsibility fell on the shoulders of Yk and Misbah.

Younis got out eleven balls later it was a soft dismissal for a batsman of his stature Yuvraj enticed him to drive and he spooned a catch straight to Raina. India were on top at this stage and Pakistan went into panic mode. This is the time in the match where the real bizarre drama unfolded, Misbah went into a complete shell and left all the scoring responsibility on his partners, it makes sense that one of the Pakistan main batsman had to bat till end but not taking singles was criminal he wasted 4-5 deliveries in most of the overs he faced and failed to rotate the strike even Saeed Ajmal could have done this job. Umar Akmal started his innings aggressively and for a moment Pakistani fans thought that they will come back in the match but in the 33rd over Umar took a single on the first ball and Misbah blocked all the five remaining deliveries, that  put immense pressure on Umar to improvise and score, experienced Harbhajan sensed that Umar will try to attempt a big shot on the On side which was largely vacant produced a beauty, he bowled a quicker one on the middle and off which kept straight Umar who was already loaded for a pull shot with a high back lift was surprised by the pace of the ball and missed it completely and was bowled. Pakistan were 142/5 after 33.1 overs.

Theoretically they still had a chance as Afridi and Razzaq were still to come but the knowing the form of these two Pakistani fans knew that the match was over. Razzaq came a head of Afridi plenty of overs were left he had all the time in the world to get set and then launch but he lasted only 3 overs and scored 3 runs off 9 balls. He completely missed a leg cutter from Munaf and got bowled. Imran Khan’s stance of playing an extra bowler got vindicated as Razzaq bowled only two overs and scored just 3 runs, Rahman could have been a better option both with bat and ball than him, the need to play another bowler is never felt when Pakistan bowls out the opposition at a below par score but whenver they play against a strong batting side and are chasing a big total Razzaq becomes the weak link in their combination he can’t bowl on flat tracks and bats too low to be effective and the management never prepared him for a major batting role as during the last two months he rarely got any opportunity to bat, they were reluctant to give him the role of a floater due to lack of confidence so what was the logic behind playing him, Pakistan could have done well by playing Rahman or Akhtar or they could have played an extra batsman.

Misbah batted like as if he was battling to save a test match in the last session, he can play the big shots, but the way he batted it showed the only objective in his mind was to take the match to the last over why the power play wasn’t taken when Razzaq or Afridi came to the crease is another mind boggling mystery, Afridi left the power play for Ajmal and Wahab Riaz, the margin of defeat was only 29 runs if Pakistan had taken the power play early a few boundaries here and there could have brought Pakistan closer to their target, ofcourse india could have finished the match much earlier too but atleast Pakistan would have gone down trying, they never gave themselves a chance and I hold Misbah and Afridi accountable for that, they were the chief culprits, they weren’t facing the best bowling attack in the world that they were so reluctant to hit the ball.

India could have won the match fair and square no disrespect is intended for the Indian team, they did what they were supposed to do my criticism is only aimed at a few Pakistani players and their captain due to their tactical blunders and mind boggling performance they missed a chance of qualifying for the finals, why those blunders were made it is anybody’s guess, some say that some of the players were bought out, some suggest that YK and Misbah underperformed to humiliate Afridi but how can they justify Afridi’s decision not to take the batting power play and not to apply pressure when 5 Indian wickets had fallen.

No team wins every match and it is wrong to suggest that whenever Pakistan team loses it is because of match fixing, Pakistan team is not invincible but then again this team was recently investigated for Match/ spot fixing three of their top players got suspended allegations were made against several others who got away because there wasn’t enough evidence available, if we take into account the above factors and look at the circumstantial evidence it is hard for me to bury my head in the sand and think that the culprits of this match just had a bad day and they didn’t had any ulterior motive.

South Africa also surprisingly lost, England and Australia also got knocked out in the second round, but if we look at the performance of those teams they weren’t as bizzarre as Pakistan’s, the only comparison I can draw here is West Indies loss against England in the group stages. I hope that Afridi will be asked by authorities to explain why he didn’t took the power play early, and why he didn’t provided his bowlers with enough cover during critical stages of the match, and I am more disgusted by Misbah then anything else.

Congratulations to my Indian friends and good luck for the finals, we had a light hearted banter going on before the match that was only to spice up things, there was no hatred or insult involved in it.

I always knew that in order to beat India,Pakistan will have to bring in their A game and then they will have a chance but unfortunately that didn’t happen.

We had a good world cup atleast less disappointing than the last two, but  the ugly performance by a few seniors spoiled the whole fun.