World Cup is Over, Well Kind of

Good Play By Pakistani. i support all the team. because they give us some Happy moments. we love you

I must say to all the nation, no hard feelings, please. Look at Top Teams like Australia, England S. Africa. So our team performed well in the WC, even with an admitted fact that our Team is already facing many issue.

One thing is clear… Pakistanis are open heart people…Indians are Racists and Biased.

Though we lost Semi final…but Pakistan is the only team that was least favourite for Quarter final even. Team with in experience players played extremely well since start of tournament and reached to Semi final. Have any body heard a single line from Indian side appreciating Pakistani performance in tournament or match against them.

They are not good host of cricket because their stadiums remains empty when India is not playing, not a single Indian claps on performance of individual of any other team. Wahab Riaz has played extremely well…did you heard a single word on his performance from Indians.

What ever gestures and sincerities we show, Indians are same…RACIST, BIASED, SELFISH, and MISERS in every field. (IT IS MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE BASED ON 5 YEARS OF INTERACTION WITH INDIANS).

APPEAL: Dear brothers, we should understand that Pakistanis are alone in the world and we have to rely on ourselves to excel economically in the region. Stop eying on US, China, India etc etc. We should have good business relations with others but never expect that any body will come and help us. We have to achieve goals ourselves and we can do it. I have firm believe in it.

MAUJ BARHAY YA AANDHI AAI
DIA JALA-AAY RAKHNA HAI
GHAR KI KHATIR SAU (100) DUKH JHAILAIN
GHAR TO AAKHIR APNA HAI

Regards,

hi brothers,
even though i am an indian, i really want to congratulate Pakistan cricket team for being so sporty nature. You should consider that they were under tremendous presure… but hats off to shahid afridi.. he really tried his best. and while talking about some useless players… such players are also there in Indian team even although every team.
We have seen misbah ul haq as a dangerous fighter.. but this time it may be a matter of form.
I am not saying this all because India won the match.. but you should also consider the emmence pressure on the pakistan team in the field and even out of the field. the politicians should stay away from cricket..
In India at every society you will find great fans of Wasim akram, Imran khan, Inzibhai, wakar younis…. I am a great great fan of Sayeed Anwar..
In these bad situations Shahid Afridi has kept the Pakistan cricket alive.
In a cricket match one has to win at the end of the day. but the Pakistan team has won the hearts of all the cricket fans… we wish them all the very best for the future..
I will always wish to see a cricket match at any stadium in Pakistan.

Courtesy ESPNCRICINFO

Pakistan let it slip through their fingers, literally

Pakistan may have overcome severe lapses in the field to win games in the past, but to expect to get away after handing four reprieves to Sachin Tendulkar is to expect a miracle

Osman Samiuddin at the PCA Stadium

March 30, 2011

At some point over the next couple of days, Pakistan will come to understand just how close they actually got – with this side whom few gave a chance – to getting to a World Cup final. The margin of defeat looks comfortable enough but there wasn’t a whole lot between them and India, ultimately, other than a safe pair of hands somewhere, anywhere in the field.

There are many frustrating ways to lose a game, let alone one as big as this, but few gnaw away at reason and rationality quite like those lost to dropped catches. In this age of the instant vent and search for a “match ka mujrim” (criminal of the match), Misbah-ul-Haq’s innings is already being pilloried in Pakistan for its poor pacing. The reaction is misplaced and overdone, for the pitch wasn’t given to fluent strokeplay, particularly after the ball softened, and there had already been some momentum-losing poor shots earlier from the openers.

Blaming the batting in any case misses the point. Pakistan are never comfortable chasers and 261, in a World Cup semi-final, at the home of the opposition is an entirely different kind of 261 from the ones they might chase down in a bilateral series in the UAE. The point is, they shouldn’t have been chasing that much in the first place.

There are some truisms in cricket that Pakistan quite brazenly and joyously ignore; leading among them are those to do with catching. They win matches? Yes, but not as much as scoring runs and taking wickets, thank you. They once dropped Graeme Smith five times as he ground out 65 in an ODI in Lahore, and still won the match comfortably. They dropped seven catches in an innings in New Zealand in 2009-10 and won the Test comfortably. These are to recall just two examples from a sizeable sample.

But there are some rules in life you cannot defy, some batsmen you really cannot give a chance to. And if you give Sachin Tendulkar four chances – not one but four! Tendulkar! – you cannot expect to win a game, no matter what else you do. It was one of Tendulkar’s least fluent recent innings as well, but in the drops of Misbah, Younis Khan – their two best catchers -Kamran Akmal and Umar Akmal, went the game. It is as simple as that.

It wasn’t – as it never is – just the runs that came after the drops, though Tendulkar did add 58 runs after the first chance went down. It was the mood that was lost each time. The first spill, with Tendulkar on 27, came as Pakistan were beginning to regain their senses after Virender Sehwag’s early blast. Tendulkar had just survived two torrid overs from Saeed Ajmal and a seminal moment was at hand.

The second, on 45, came the over after Gautam Gambhir had gone. Momentum again was at stake. The third came a few overs after Wahab Riaz’s two-wicket over left India in a position of real danger. All chances, incidentally, were created by the tournament’s leading wicket-taker, the man to whom Pakistan look for inspiration, for breakthroughs, for controlling the middle overs of the game, their captain, a man who thrives on taking precisely such wickets, Shahid Afridi.

The effects of this on a game cannot possibly be calculated, except to say the obvious, that it changes everything and goes beyond runs alone. Who knows what target Pakistan could have been chasing? There was another, less important, miss later, on 81, but a miss nonetheless and none of the outfield catches were difficult.

“We made some big mistakes in fielding, we dropped some catches, and catches for Sachin,” Afridi said. He then quipped, referring to his much-discussed phantom statement in the build-up of trying to prevent a 100th international Tendulkar hundred, “I told you he wouldn’t score a hundred.” It was gallows humour.

It is sad – but also predictable – that ultimately it came down to Pakistan’s fielding, for that is the one area they have really worked hard on in training and actually thought about methodically, making sure for once of placing the right fielders in the right places. Younger players have come in who genuinely enjoy fielding, a couple of older ones have led the way.

They have been very sharp as they were against Australia but also still capable of sudden, unexpected tragi-comedy as against Sri Lanka at the R Premadasa in the second half of the hosts’ chase and today. Overall, they have been considerably better than before, in particular with the energy they have brought on to the field. But there is much, much more to be done.

If they are skilled and contrary enough to get away with it against most sides and players, to expect to do so against the game’s greatest modern-day batsman, in such a setting, is to expect miracles.

Original post by Osman Samiuddin, Pakistan editor of ESPNcricinfo

Courtesy ESPNCRICINFO

I think Afridi is getting award of best bowler/leading wicket taker of the tournment after the final ends. Too bad he’s already back home.