Amazing Last over by Pakistan Against Australia

Cricket is truly unpredictable. And with Pakistan playing, even the unpredictability matrix goes out of whack. The final over of T20 match against Australia, Pakistan did just that. Mohammad Amir, an 18 year old lad from Pakistan, bowled a magical over where Australia saw 5 of its wickets fall in just one over. This is probably the most bizarre world record in all forms of cricket.

Mohammad Amir had Brad Haddin caught by Mohammad Sami at gully. The next ball Mitchel Johnson was cleaned bowled by a beautiful Pakistani tradmark yorkers  The next two deliveries saw batsmen run suicidal singles and lose their wickets by accurate throws from the wicketkeeper, Kamran Akmal. And the last two balls, S. Tait tried to score some runs only to see his wicket rattled by Aamir’s last bowl. So in a space of 6 deliveries, Mohammad Aamir bowled three victims and two were run outs. The over was a maiden and Australia were bundled out for 191. Just an over earlier, Australia, were cruising at 181/4 and all set to cross 200 and give Pakistan an imposing total to chase. However and quite astonishingly, were all bundled out in a space of 11 balls with only 10 runs added during the same span of time.

This was in quite a contrast to the earlier part of the innings when Australia hammered Pakistani bowlers all over the park. Mohammad Sami and Mohammad Hafeez were especially targetted by Australian batsmen and in 8 overs together they gave away 101 runs. Thats a whopping 12.5 runs an over. Shahid Afridi had the services of Abdul Razzaq and Fawad Alam as other bowlers in the team (just in case if his main bowlers were hit out) but he persisted with Sami and Hafeez which turned into a costly gamble.

Pakistani batsmen will now be tested against the quality Australian bowling. And if Pakistan wants to get anywhere in this match, they will need to hang onto their wickets and bat sensibly. They should not try to play lose shots till the 12th over. Uptil then, bat with responsibilty. This is also a match where players like Abdul Razzaq and Misbah ul Haq, their most quality batsmen, should be promoted up the order and allowed to bat themselves in. Once they are in, they can easily hit big shots later in the innings.

Shahid Afridi should keep himself in the dugout till the last 5 overs. As that is when he should come out and play his natural game.

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