Things could not have been better for Pakistan’s cricket and PCB right now. First off they entered into contract to play at a neutral venue in Dubai at a brand spanking new purpose built stadium and to top it all off they got Australia to play the first series with them there.
Although the Aussies came without Lee or Ponting or for that matter Hussey they still represented a more than difficult threat for a team which had not played against a major international side in some time.
So you can imagine this fans surprise when Pakistan ran all over them, Aussies chose to bat and then were bewildered by all types of crazy spin from Afridi as well as Saeed Ajmal with his doosras. To me Saeed Ajmal looks like a Saqlain clone but Afridi has certainly benefited from Abdul Qadirs advice and was ripping it quite well. At one point the Aussies were cruising and then within the space of 23 runs 7 wickets fell leaving them tottering at 168 all out.
Although Pak relaxed a bit too much for my taste during their chase and gave up some seemingly silly wickets, but Misbah and Akmal guided us to victory in the end. Akmal’s catching too seems to have greatly improved. All in all it was a glimmer of hope for all us fans of green, we proved to ourselves once again that our team can still do it, even if they do it with a few bumbles and fumbles.
Still the series is 5 matches long and this was only the first, I look forward to the Aussies bringing the fight to Pakistan and this being a great tourney in all. As it is the IPL is boring as hell and we here in Karachi are starving for some good Pak cricket 🙂
Go Pak!! I want a big yellar grave in the sands of Dubai!!
Ya really I didn’t expect such a good performance.. there is something about Afridi I always thought he was a good spinner, but under utilised much like Sachin.. These buggers spin the ball like Warne albeit less accurate
So happy to see the team back in action, and winning too!