I’m glad that we beat SA, but beating them nowadays is not a tougher task anymore as they have lost 10 games in a row already, they are already down the hill. Its like beating a dead lion 
Neverthless, strenghtens my hope that the fight we gave to Australians was not a fluke and :insha: we’ll beat them in next encounter
One need courage even to go near the dead lion, kia pata zinda ho ? 
Match Report:
South Africa lost their ICC Champions Trophy warm up match to Pakistan at Walmley Cricket Club in Birmingham on Thursday by 24 runs.
Disappointing as another defeat is, the outcome of the match was secondary to the opportunity to give all the players a run ahead of Sundays opener against Bangladesh.
For the record,(or not in this instance), Pakistan made 227 for 9 in 50 overs, and South Africa 203 all out.Neither Lance Klusener (bruised calf) or Alan Dawson (high fever) took any part intodays match. Both are expected to be fit for selection for Sunday.
On a glorious late summers day, the bowlers did a superb job on a slow pitch in restricting Pakistan to 227. Only a mighty onslaught from Shahid Afridi saved his side from posting less than 180. he smashed 59, including six sixes to inject some urgency into an otherwise torpid innings. Imran Farhat spent almost 29 overs in making 40 and Younis Khan was equally stodgy in compiling 51.
There was much for coach Eric Simons to enthuse about among the bowling as Pollock (1/22 in 8), Langeveldt (4/34 in 10) and Ntini (2/34 in 9) bowled with accuracy and discipline.
Langeveldt was particularly impressive as he took three wickets in the 41st over and bowled with excellent control and pace.
The tiny boundaries all round the ground did not help the spinner, Boje and Peterson who were on on the receiving end of the Afridi assault, conceding 80 runs between them in 14 overs.
“I think we could have contained them to around 170, but it was important to give Robbie and Bodg a decent bowl in these conditions,” said Graeme Smith at the end of the day.
Jacques Rudolph was the early wicket in the pursuit, but them Smith and Herschelle Gibbs played with freedom and confidence to add 87 for the second wicket, but, when Gibbs was bowled by Razzaq for 38 and Smith by Akhtar for 59, a mini collapse ensued as Van Jaarsveld, Boucher, Duminy and Kallis fell in quick succession, leaving South Africa struggling at 146 for 6.
Shaun Pollock weighed in with 35 before being last man out in the 49th over, leaving South Africa 24 runs short.
Coach Eric Simons was relatively pleased with the days play; “Makhaya and Langers bowled very well, their lines were superb and not a no-ball in sight!
Herschelle showed good form, particularly against Shaoib Akhtar with the new ball, he drove well and looks in good form, Graeme also played nicely. It was unfortunate the guys in the middle order weren’t able to capitalise on the good start, but I’m not too disappointed. Today’s pitch was very slow and I don’t think the Edgbaston track will be anything like this. We’ve got two days of practice at Edgbaston and we will continue to work really hard in the areas that require attention,” said Simons.
Afridi really contributing any way he can, when the bat fails, the ball saves him and when the balls fails, there's the bat. Nice to see a player giving his all to make the team.
Afridi hit six 6's in a score of 59! Man, the guy is something. 2/23 is not shabby either.
It seems that Pakistan played without Inzi, YOYO and Sami. CAn anyone confirm it ?
Afridi saved Pakistan :k: Hopefully he will play like this when the ICC Champions tropht begins 
Well played by Afridi. I think he knows the English pitches quite well having played couties extensively.
How about that Yunis Khan :D (ez i'm just messing around)
It would be nice to see a scoarecard. I wonder who we intend to use as the 3rd bowler. I hope Rana does'nt come on for Shabbir.
^^ Younis Khan… don’t start it again 
I have very little blood left to burn. 50 runs off 100 balls is a good ODI innings 
pata nahi salay ka kiya pawwa hai, nikal kar hi nahi deta team se, despite of all the facts that are against him…the writing of the wall clearly says his style of batting suites only in Tests. He can’t anchor an innings as well, because he does not rotate strike on regular basis, which is expected from such a role to hold one end and rotate strike so other can have a full hand on bat. Besides, he is so passive in his game that he will make two runs only what should have been three runs. Its negative cricket.
^^^ Bachey jaha par sab ider odher out ho rahey tey us ka kia, atleast he made some score. unlike other yoyo inzi he stayed out there for 100 balls.
All u guys want is hits 4s and 6s, thats all. and then while trying to score fast we get out ur the ppl who come out at take $hit abt the team....
u guys just can't stick with one thing. u guys want a 100% perfect team. and guess what even austrialia isn't a perfect team.
^ Yoyo and Inzi didn't play the match.
Heres the scorecard.
Birmingham - The scorecard in South Africa's warm-up cricket match for the ICC Trophy against Pakistan in London on Thursday.
PAKISTAN
Y Hameed c Boucher b Pollock 5
S Butt c Ntini 18
I Farhat b Boje 40
Shoaib Malik b Langeveldt 2
Y Khan b Langeveldt 50
S Afridi c Kallis b Langeveldt 59
Abdul Razzaq b Langeveldt 0
Azer Mahmood c Boucher b Ntini 5
M Khan run out (Gibbs) 17
Rana not out 24
Shoaib Akhtar not out 2
Exstras 5
TOTAL (for 9.50 overs) 227
Fall of wickets: Not available
BOWLING: Pollock 8-2-22-1; Langeveldt 10-1-34-4; Ntini 9-2-34-2, Boje 9-0-38-1; Kallis 7-0-31-0; Peterson 5-0-42-0; Smith 2-0-10-0; Van Jaarsveld 1-0-9-0.
SOUTH AFRICA
J Rudolph c Moin b Rana 3
H Gibbs b Razzaq 38
G Smith b Akhtar 59
M van Jaarsveld b Afridi 18
M Boucher b Akhtar 0
JP Duminy lbw Razzaq 16
J Kallis b Razzaq 3
S Pollock c and b Akhtar 35
N Boje v Rana b Razzaq 4
R Peterson dt Moin b Afridi 8
RC Langeveldt not out 0
Exstras 19
TOTAL (all out) 48.2 overs) 203
Bowling: Akhtar 9.2-0-43-3; Rana 6-0-26-1; Mahmood 5-0-18-0; Razzaq 10-1-46-4; Malik 10-2-21-0; Afridi 10-1-22-2.
Pakiston win by 24 runs.
wohoo we wonn .. ..
well played , who was the captain ? inzi n yoyo werent playin rite ? ..
moin khan .. ? ..
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by smooth_guy: *
Besides, he is so passive in his game that he will make two runs only what should have been three runs. Its negative cricket.
[/QUOTE]
Though I am sick and tired of discussing Younis, Shoaib Akhtar etc but would like to correct your misconception that Younis Khan is a slow runner. He is probably the fastest and accurate runner between the wickets after Shoaib Malik.
Running is not a question here, he runs fast b/w the wickets. But its conservative TEST cricket approach that he tries to applies in ODI. He hardly hits a shot for three runs anyways let alone a 4. He is a took tooki player, which does not suit short version of the game. Asim Kamal is blamed to be a test player, but his strike rate and courage tells that he could be a lot better choice then Younis. Younis looks shaky from the very first ball. pawwa is there.
pkpride ji…look at dravid, he plays ODI with the fundamental batting tactics too. Blocks, defends and plays selected shots. But once he eats some overs while his S/R is less than 50%, and feels comfortable, then he starts hitting 4s here and there, safely. At the end we see his strike rate rise above 80%, at the same time he anchors the innings as well that leads to stability in over all teams innings.
On the same token, Inzi takes 5 overs to settle down and slowly rotates the strike, but once he is settled, you know how frequently he shows boundry to the ball. That equalizes his S/R.
Younis is simply pathetic to watch.
I told u my man, I was just messing around. No, I think Yunis is done for the forseeable future from the ODI team. If anybody has checked those teams for the practice matches against Zimbabwe next month, you can see the players of teh future. There are enough middle order batsmen that I don’t see a recall for Yunis after this series, unless he plays and does something miraculous.
Speaking of those teams, anybody notice that Hasan Raza is supposed to captain PCB Chairman’s XI . Nice to see that he’s back on the horizon. The guy is supposedly still only 21.
Would you please let us in on your top secret exclusive forum?
Bob Woolmer's commentary on the match against South Africa.
Note: that he did not had scoresheets with him, so some scores do not tie to the scorecard presented above:
There we played against South Africa in a warm up match.
We left out Inzamam, Yousouf and Sami to give the other guys an opportunity. Moin Khan captained the team and South Africa put us in on a slow turning pitch, which because of the early morning start 10:15 am seamed and swung a bit, The pitch had been used previously as the main pitch prepared had two hole in it on a good length. These might have been dangerous so we moved onto the used pitch.
Graeme Smith the young South African captain (22 years old) won the toss and put us in. we Opened with Yasir and Salman Butt who both looked in no trouble until Yasir swished at a wide out swinger off the back foot and was caught by Wicket Keeper Boucher, I believe he scored about 6 at the time. Unfortunately I don’t have a scorecard on me so I am going to be guessing a bit). Imran and Salman then put on 30 with Salman looking the more fluent but Imran playing very sensibly. Then Salman exposed his leg stump to Ntini bowling wide of the crease (over the wicket) and just tipped the leg stump bail 40-2. Shoiab Malik went in at four and had his middle stump removed without scoring as he went back to a ball he should really have gone forward to. He was also done by some extravagant seam movement 40-3. Younis Khan went in and he and Imran put together a good partnership until Imran having hit Boje for two huge sixes went down the pitch again but misjudged the length and was bowled through the gate. He made a hard fought 34, this let Shahid Afridi and he and Younis then put on a very quick fire partnership taking us to 168-4 with Shahid Afridi scoring 65 off 34 balls and Younis Khan weighing in with a well worked 52. Unfortunately the two wickets fell in two overs and then Abdul Razzaq immediately dragged one on to his stumps and from 168-4 we went to 168-7. Azhar Mehmood and Moin followed by Rana and Shoaib eventually saw us complete the full 50 overs and scoring 227. A total I felt was 30 runs short due to us losing 3 wickets in a short space of time.
Rana and Shoaib opened the bowling and tested both Rudolph and Gibbs eventually Rana dismissing Rudolph and South Africa then had Gibbs and Smith who came in at three , both survived confident appeals one for Gibbs an LBW shout which looked dead and Graeme Smith edged to Moin off Rana and was adjudged not out, these two took South Africa to 94-1 when Abdul Razzaq struck bowling Gibbs through the gate and the Shoiab throttled the South African batsmen Smith and Van Jaarsveld and eventually created too much pressure, Shoiab bowled Smith wit a tremendous slower ball and the South African middle and late order with the exception of Pollock succumbed to a combination of spin and reverse swing and eventually were bowled out for 203.
I was very excited by the ground fielding performance which was exuberant and good and matched South Africa in all areas apart from the catching where we dropped to skiers, one through a misunderstanding between Yasir and Younis and one extremely hard catch that Shoaib made 25 metres and had to dive and just failed to catch it.
This is exactly why we need Younis khan in the team! if it were not for him staying on the wicket for 20-25 overs, the whole team would have been skittled for 130-150 in 35-40 overs! Afridi launched cuz Y. Khan was holding the other end. if you have wickets falling on the other end, its very hard to play with confidence!
All those ppl against his inclusion should play a 50 over game and learn the importance of just staying "out there"!