Pakistan storm into World Cup semi-final after thrashing West Indies
To counter an irresistible force, as Pakistan were on Wednesday, requires an immovable object but with the singular exception of Shivnarine Chanderpaul who, in the direst adversity and in his most obdurate trouble-shooting role batted 106 deliveries for an unbeaten 44, West Indies offered less resistance than a straw house in a hurricane.
A 40-run partnership for the ninth wicket guaranteed West Indies were not humiliated, with their lowest World Cup score being 93 – an anomalous effort against Kenya in Pune in 1996 – but 112 offers nothing about which to be proud.
Devon Smith lacerated the first ball of the match to the square boundary but that represented the only time his side were ahead. In all there were only seven fours and a solitary six hit out of the blue by Chanderpaul, boundary-less otherwise, just to show he could do it if he wanted.
Far from the runs flowing like water, as the anthem Rally Round the West Indies would have it, they came with all the gush of a standpipe during a drought. The reply was a forgone conclusion. With only eight balls of the Pakistan innings gone, Mohammad Hafeez and Kamran Akmal had obliterated West Indies' paltry powerplay score of 18 for three and passed their 15-over total after a further 19 deliveries.The lights were on and perhaps the ball skidded on a little better, but the bowling was as toothless as the West Indies batting had been.
Pakistan's batting was cocksure-urgent by contrast. Hafeez and Akmal put on an unbroken 113 and left almost 30 overs unused, Hafeez finishing with 61 from 64 balls and Akmal 47 from 61, 17 fours accruing between them.
Three weeks ago on this ground, led by Kemar Roach, West Indies humiliated Bangladesh by bundling them out for 58 and, along with the vanquished, had the team bus stoned for their pains. The packed crowd at the Sher-e-Bangla stadium on Wednesday was fiercely and joyously partisan (if not their own team, they will cheer Pakistan to the rafters), so no one was likely to waste a single pebble on Darren Sammy's side unless, expecting a contest and being severely deprived, it was to demand their money back. West Indies can slink away now and few will notice they have gone.
Pakistan, by contrast, are on a roll and gathering pace. We have seen this before and when they start to believe in themselves, it can be hard to stop them.
Team selection played its part in their win, as they read the pitch to perfection and brought back the off-spin of Saeed Ajmal, while West Indies, seduced perhaps by their previous game here, brought back Chanderpaul as the sort of belt and braces they had needed during their collapse against India. They left out the left-arm spinner Sulieman Benn, retaining only the international novice leg-spinner Davendra Bishoo.
By the time the second over of the day was done it was apparent that spin would carry the day with Hafeez, an underrated off-spinner and subsequent man of the match, taking the new ball with Umar Gul and winning two lbw decisions in his first three overs. They contributed to final figures of two for 16 after Gul had chipped out the opener Chris Gayle for eight.
Later Ajmal's doosra so flummoxed the lower order that he too claimed two wickets for 18 during a disastrous 11-ball period for West Indies in which four wickets fell for two runs, with Chanderpaul unable to gain the strike.
Above it all, though, bestrode the magnificent Shahid Afridi, the heartbeat of the Pakistan team who first plucked from the air at wide mid-off the catch that Gayle, stepping to leg, drilled there and finally, with four for 30, left for dead any other bowler in the competition in terms of wickets. He now has 21.
There are few cricketers from whom it is unwise to take one's eyes off even for a moment, and Afridi is one. His batting may have conceded the pyrotechnic deadliness of old but like someone who loses a sense but gains an enhanced one in compensation, his bowling, wrist spin of a type perhaps unique in the modern game, has become astounding at times.
Not since the great Indian wrist spinner Bhagwath Chandrasekhar has someone delivered wrist spin at such pace and with such control. Chandra largely bowled leaping top-spin and googlies, although Afridi can make the ball dip into the right-hander on the spin and then dart and bounce away.
And with each wicket he stands grinning ecstatically, arms aloft as if he desperately wants to join in the YMCA dance moves at a wedding reception but has yet to master them beyond the letter Y.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/ma ... est-indies
