Tag T20 World Cup 2010

No cricket team has all eleven livewire fielders but most, at international level, can take their catches. Pakistanis can't..

We hear Shahid Afridi (or whoever captains Pakistan) saying "boys are working hard in nets" but several of them forget basics during match which often scripts their defeat. Catching was a major problem for green team on last winless tour of Australia and yesterday, at Barbados against England, Pakistan dropped 2 simple catches (both by Saeed Ajmal), 2 tough but takable ones, 1 extremely dificult one (by Mohammad Hafeez) at baundary edge and Kamran Akmal missed stumps twice with ball in gloves and batsman out of crease.

You don't expect to win the match after committing these blunders.. Pak didn't.

It was like Pakistan didn't wanted to win this match after England won the toss and inserted them in. Kamran Akmal and Salman Butt were striking balls very well but both threw away their wickets. Mohammad Hafeez too played some handsome drives through the off side but fell to silly looking left arm spin by Michael Yardy. At same score, captain Shahid Afridi reminded days of Inzamam-ul-Haq through a bad call = runout.

Mishbah-ul-Haq, Abdul Razzaq and Fawad Alam have been unproductive lower middle order for Pakistan for quite some time now and today they did no good either. Thanks to Saeed Ajmal, Pakistan scored 15 runs off the last over with 9 wickets down, the best of their innings, and finished with improbable looking 147 for 9 wkts.

England start, as mentioned above, kicked off with Saeed Ajmal dropping two dollys at mid-on, once off either opener Michael Lumb and Craig Kieswetter. Both openers hit 3 fours and a six a piece as England went ahead with 44 run first wicket stand.

Platform was set for Kevin Pietersen to take control and right handed South African born drove his team home, with an unbeaten 70 runs off just 52 balls with 7 fours and 2 sixes. Pietersen never let asking runrate go past 8 run per over mark even though Paul Collingwood and Eoin Morgan departed at a tense juncture.

The scores

Pakistan 147 for 9 wkts in 20 overs
S Butt 34, U Akmal 30, M Yardy 2/19
England 148 for 4 wkts in 19.3 overs
Pietersen 70, Lumb 25, Kieswetter 25
Full scorecard : Eng v Pak, World T20.

Points table

Points table for World T20 2010 becomes very dificult for defending champions Pakistan as they'll have to win both of their group E matches against New Zealand and South Africa, by good margins, and then hope for other two teams to do bad so that their net runrate takes them through semifinals. England, on other hand, are very well placed with one win from one game and two to come.. note that no teams carry forward no points from first stages.