Adil Najam
UPDATE:
India won the TwentyTwenty final in a thriller, after setting Pakistan 158 to win and then bowling Pakistan out (with three balls to spare) for 152. IK Pathan from India was names Man of the Match for very tidy bowling (3/16 from 4 overs) while Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi was named Man of the Series.
ORIGINAL POST:
I have resisted writing about the Twenty20 Cricket Tournament in South Africa till now. But now I can resist no more. All is set for a thriller final game against India.
What more could one ask for… well, actually, one could ask for Pakistan’s TwentyTwenty winning streak to continue into the Final game against India in Johannesburg on Monday!
Pakistan is on a roll. And this is no fluke. The victories against Australia and Sri Lanka were brilliant and breezing past New Zealand in the semi-final today proved that this is not just a lucky streak.
The young team under a young captain and a new coach seems to have finally found its stride. And it is about time…
Much of our cricket coverage this last year has been depressing. Umpire controversies, a disastrous World Cup Exit, death of a coach, players misbehaving, and more. So, this good news is very welcome. It is all the more welcome because other news these days is much less than welcome.
India, too, has had a spectacular T20 tournament. In fact, the most memorable moments of the tournament till now were the 6 sixes in an over by Yuvraj against England.
That the game between India and Pakistan in the T20 tournament had ended in a tie will make the anticipation about the final even more nail-biting.
Neither team goes in as favorites. Both go in on a roll. Its should be one great game!
It was a great effort by both team & it could have gone either way! Pakistani bowlers came up with a stupendous performance yet again! We Indians needed a WC win for several years & we are glad this came by. I was very happy this WC is coming home to the sub continent anywhich way & India winning was an icing on the cake.
My Pakistan friends, your team did extremely well & just one more wicket in hand.. you would have been champions. I hope the PCB announces some cash prize for the team for thier effort as they were given none at the presentation ceremony.
Well done Pakistan cricket team…!!!
I think they gave their 100% and when the margin is this much narrow, it doesn’t really matter if they lost.
As far as Shoaib Malik’s closing comments are concerned I also noted it with caution but I think he would have better expressed his point in Urdu.
I know our Christian and Hindu friends from Pakistan were also praying for Pak team with the rest of the nation.
After a long time Pak team brought so much of an excitement to a cricket loving nation to give us a break.
At the same time, lets not forget to congratulate India for an outstanding all round performance.
christianpak:
i didnt watch the ending ceremony but if thats what he said he should have put that in better words.someone on this blog should write about non muslim pakistanis and how our undelibrate actions might be offending them to increase awareness about this.
ps: congrats to india.
Congratulations to Indian Cricket team on this well-earned win.
ChristianPak:
Brother you are right that Shoaib Malik ignored you and Pakistani minorities. I am sorry for that, but Pakistanis have not learned to respect minorities uptill now. I am a Shia and even I have to deal with nonsense from time to time.
Hope you still enjoyed the Pakistani matches.
An excellent match and full credit to both teams.
One thing about Pakistan though. We really need to find a consistent pair of openers. The middle order has been bailing us out after a terrible start for quite some time but we can’t expect this to happen every time.
Salaam Adil!
Oh goodness mine! What a blitzkrieg this Twenty20 World Cup was! For one, it showed that 200 runs can be scored in 20 overs only; it’s all about the mindset.
For another, it delivered excellent cricket - tight matches with never a dull moment. And how our stars have shone - now that we are rid of some of the trouble-makers.
Then the Pakistan captain said something that was so irrelevant that I couldn’t believe my ears. So I looked at the highlights over and over again to make sure that I’d actually heard him say it. This is what he said to master of ceremonies, Ravi Shastri, who asked him a sympathetic question about the game after Shoaib had collected his loser’s medal:
“First of all I want to say something over here. I want to thank you back home Pakistan and where the Muslim lives all over the world.”
This is what he said word for word because it’s important to quote him correctly. The problem here isn’t the syntax, it is the sentiment. I don’t expect Shoaib Malik to be a politically correct intellectual, but it is reasonable to expect him to know the world of cricket that he inhabits.
It is a world where Muslims, Hindus and a Sikh currently play for England, where Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and a Hindu play for Sri Lanka, where Hashim Amla turns out for South Africa, where a Patel plays for New Zealand, where Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and Hindus play (and have always played) for India. Why would Shoaib think, then, that the Muslims of the world were collectively rooting for the Pakistan team or that they felt let down by its defeat? Did he stop to think of how Danish Kaneria, his Hindu team-mate, might feel hearing his Test skipper all but declare that the Pakistan team is a Muslim team that plays for the Muslims of the world? It is one thing to be publicly religious—Shahid Afridi thanked Allah and Matt Hayden and Shaun Pollock are proud, believing Christians—quite another to declare that your country’s cricket eleven bats for international Islam.
Is this the forum to talk about this? Shouldn’t Cricinfo and cricket’s online community stick to cricket and leave issues like this alone? No we shouldn’t, because Shoaib Malik chose to make it our business by saying it in team colours at the end of the ICC World Twenty20 final. He said something that goes to the heart of cricket’s loyalties, its culture, its plurality of race and faith and language. If Shoaib took in nothing else about the final, he must have noticed that the bowler who took his wicket was called Irfan Khan Pathan, that the Indian team’s most visible cheerleader, the guy who was hugging Indian players in turn at the end of the game, was one Shah Rukh Khan. I feel a residual distaste in even mentioning their names because both Shah Rukh and Irfan are admired in India for what they’ve achieved, not who they are. But sometimes it is important to spell things out and Shoaib could do with the instruction.
http://blogs.cricinfo.com/meninwhite/archives/2007 /09/scenes_from_a_final.php