Sunday’s seven-wicket victory against Ireland was Pakistan’s befitting tribute to late Bob Woolmer — one of the finest coaches I have come across. I still feel the pain of that dreadful loss to Ireland eight years ago in the ICC World Cup in the West Indies and the events that followed afterwards.

A couple of players from those days, Shahid Afridi and Younis Khan, are still in the team and Bob’s memories must have rolled back for them when Umar Akmal smashed the winning boundary at the Adelaide Oval, which booked Pakistan’s place in the quarter-finals.

Ireland was by miles a better associate side in this World Cup. They had proved their credentials by beating two Test nations, West Indies and Zimbabwe, in its earlier pool matches. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting a third upset by them against Pakistan in a match which was a must-win for both the sides to progress into the quarter-finals.

Irish captain William Porterfield did the right thing to bat first after winning the toss in a hope to put scoreboard pressure on Pakistan which is notorious in chasing even small totals. But he was up against a Pakistan pace quartet, which to me is the best in this World Cup. Despite losing tall fast bowler Mohammad Irfan due to an injury before the match, his replacement Ehsan Adil hit the right areas and it never looked as if he was making his World Cup debut.

Pakistan’s confidence returned with victories against Zimbabwe and South Africa. In both these matches, Misbah-ul-Haq’s pace bowlers had successfully defended totals under 250, a feat which is tough to achieve with only four fielders outside the 30-yard circle on a relatively smaller grounds.

Partnerships are key to any big totals. Porterfield formed the nucleus of the Irish total of 237 with a superb century, but rest of the top-order batsmen couldn’t bat around their captain for longer periods.

The key to Pakistan’s success was the accuracy and nagging length of their fast bowlers, especially when the ball got old. That was the reason the hard-hitting O’Brien brothers, Niel and Kevin, fell early as they couldn’t force the pace against the Pakistan bowlers.

Such was the accuracy of Ehsan Adil, Wahab Riaz, Rahat Ali and Sohail Khan that Ireland nosedived to 55 for five in the last 11 overs and it was game, set and match for Ireland at the half-time.

In the defense of team management, I will say that everyone makes mistakes in life but what’s important is how quickly you learn from them and rectify them. Cricket is no different and finding the right combination is not always easy. There are a number of factors which coaches and captains consider before fielding the final playing XI. Pakistan did struggle early in the pool matches because of their mindset at the time. Playing with seven batsmen shows a negative mindset but if you go with five batsmen, five bowlers and a keeper, you send a strong signal to the opposition.

Sarfraz’s elevation to the opener’s slot in the last two matches gave Pakistan’s middle-order enough cushion. Sarfraz reminds me a lot of Javed Miandad’s art of rotating the strike. Whenever a batsman takes singles and twos, it not only disturbs and frustrates the bowlers but disallows them to explore the weak areas of the batsmen.

And that’s what exactly Sarfraz did on Sunday. The rotation of strike gave confidence to Ahmed Shehzad as both raised the first century opening stand for Pakistan in this tournament.

Great batsmen are those who finish off the game and do not lose concentration after scoring 50s, 60s or 70s. Sarfraz has all these ingredients in abundance. He adjusts his strokes so quickly that it makes life difficult for even the good bowlers. Once he completed his maiden ODI hundred, he played three consecutive dot balls as Pakistan needed just one run for the victory.

It might have looked a bit odd to some, but it was a sporting gesture from Sarfraz as he allowed his senior partner Umar to score the winning run after he had helped him reach three figures for the first time in his career. This is how you need to compliment your team-mates which enhances the team spirit and unity.

Moving to another important development, there’s some talk of a 10-team World Cup in 2019 and I am all in favour of it.

For associate teams like Ireland, what the ICC needs to do is to arrange regular One-day International series for them against Test playing nations, say a minimum of 10-12 ODIs in a year, instead of just organising international matches among the associate countries. It could help lower-ranked sides, especially Ireland, to be in the top eight of the ICC rankings and qualify directly for the World Cup 2019.—Courtesy ICC

Published in Dawn March 17th , 2015

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