Re: 4th ODI - Pakistan vs New Zealand in Napier - Feb 01, 2011
True Pakistan won despite Afridi’s poor captaincy today. The way he persisted with Sohail Tanvir even though he was getting spanked all over the park was absolutely mind boggling. It almost cost us the game today. I actually thought NZ would win at the half way stage. It is always more difficult to chase a total in ODI and 262 seemed like a good total even on a flat surface. Razzaq bowled well in his opening spell conceding just 16 runs in 7 overs and Afridi should have brought him back into the attack. NZ should never have been allowed to get up to 262 after being 5/79 and then 6 wickets down for 140 odd at one stage. If Pakistan can’t go for the kill from having a weak opposition 5 or 6 wickets down for not many then forget anything spectacular against Lankans, Saffies, Aussies, England and India
**Full credit to Misbah. He played a perfect ODI innings guiding Pakistan to a narrow win. Without Misbah and Younis Khan’s calmness in the middle overs (hence you need consolidators in ODI), Pakistan would have surely lost this game. **
Wahab (though he bowled well today) and Sohail Tanvir seem to be the weak link in our attack. Both leak runs and can be very expensive esp. Sohail Tanvir. They have obviously gone for Sohail because he can bat a bit but Tanvir Ahmed (unfortunately he has not been selected for WC) is perhaps a more economical and better bowler than both Wahab and Sohail. Maybe they should replace Sohail Tanvir with Abdur Rehman (who can bat a bit) in the next game
Just goes to show that in ODIs you can never afford to relax or mess things up even when you have the opposition 6 or 7 wickets down for not many. They can still fight back and make you pay in the end overs if you do not lead well or bowl with intelligence and commonsense. Australia did this regularly to teams during their peak years. Even in games in which they seemingly looked down and out, they were able to stage remarkable come-backs thru the likes of Bevan, Symonds and Gilchrist