Former Aussie Prime Minister Paul Keating could have probably offered a good summary of Saturday night’s Australia-Pakistan World Cup match in Colombo: “These were the bad sessions that Australia had to have,” or something similar.
But it’s not that simple. I watched the Aussie innings (on mute, mostly, at our local youth drop-in centre, just in case nobody else really cared too much for the game) and a third of the Pakistan chase before retiring at 1.15am on Sunday.
By the time Australia was eight down with Jason Krejza frustratingly bowled by an Umar Gul good-un, I knew it: Australia will not win the 2011 World Cup.
This was something I had been suspecting was coming for weeks, if not months, and arguably the magnitude of it in one-day terms matches the recent Ashes Test series defeat.
While England were thrashed in the one-dayers here in Australia a while back, they headed to the subcontinent perhaps in a weary state of mind, but have given the general impression that they’ve really made something of the Cup (in a weird kind of “well, it’s there to play for so we might as well have a go lads” way).
Admittedly, that something from the Pom point of view has also had all the white-knuckle insanity quota of a badly-timed rollercoaster ride, but at least you can’t say it hasn’t been fun. At least South Africa assisted Andrew Strauss’ men greatly by eliminating Bangladesh on behalf of England.
By comparison, Australia, having administered the aforementioned thrashing of England, strolled onto the plane to India with confidence sky-high and then spent the best part of a month sat around with week-long match breaks and fixtures against a few lesser sides and an otherwise enjoyable wash-out against Sri Lanka.
Australia’s 176 was its lowest total since March 15, 1992 – when Pakistan restricted the home side to 172 in 45.2 overs. The visitors won by 48 runs. It also ended the 34-game unbeaten Cup streak held by the Aussies.
The last team to beat them? Pakistan, in 1999.
It was also the first time Australia had been completely dismissed while batting since the 1999 semi-final tie against South Africa. Phew. Glad we got all that out of the way.
It must be said, too, that for the second time on the telly (for Channel Nine viewers only, of course, unlike those who pay Rupert his money via satellite or cable) the Premadasa Stadium looked like a wonderful place to watch a cricket game from.
None of the fun police-stifled vibe we seem to be increasingly getting at Aussie venues, just drums, trumpets, flag-wavers, an apparent virtual Pakistan home-match atmosphere and at least one local Colombo-ian dressed in the Sri Lanka colours doing robot-dances around the boundary.
Terrific stuff, creating the sense that Australia was almost having to battle two countries at once, given Pakistan’s political situation wouldn’t allow matches to be held there. Australia versus Pakisrilankastan, perhaps – united by a desire to see Ricky Ponting’s men fall over.
Pakistan and South Africa look the two sides likely to contest the final – well, that was my impression after the evidence of Saturday’s howler result. Perhaps after a Pakistan-India semi on the one side and a South Africa-Sri Lanka one on the other.
As tends to happen between Australia and Pakistan, this fixture had a bit of argy-bargy, pushy-shovey and tete-a-tetey. What is it with Aussie keepers?
Ian Healy used to occasionally seem to be either the bane or a pain to opponents in the past, and now we have Brad Haddin – and not for the first time – sticking his nose (and forearm) where it wasn’t warranted.
I’ve always believed the bat and ball a player is holding should be left to do the talking – as the scoreboard is what will matter after the final delivery has been bowled.
Ditto for Brett Lee, Shaun Tait and Mitch Johnson. These guys continue to run hot and cold – when they’re good, they’re brilliant. Otherwise it’s a case of sprayed balls, leaking runs and decidedly uncool heads.
Yes, Lee did look younger than his accumulating years at times, but he also suffered from the strange video referral system on more than one occasion. Bowling to openers Kamran Akmal and Mohammad Hafeez – and eventually getting Akmal leg-before for 23 and Hafeez with a ripper caught-and-bowled – Lee could feel mystified about the responses of the man in the video replay booth.
At least two shouts went unsuccessful before Akmal’s demise, and even that was a weird one. The first, turned down by the on-field umpire, was referred by Australia, and despite the Hawk-Eye suggesting it would have hit leg stump, the original decision of not out stood.
Why? Take two from Lee was also given not out, and this time the replays showed the ball would have indeed missed the stumps. Fair enough. Number three (the Akmal wicket) was given out, then referred by the Pakistani batsman, and looked extremely similar to appeal one (ball just grazing leg stump) and this time it was okayed as out.
It seemed to be the case that the replay system operators went with a motto of “if in doubt, go with the on-field umpire’s decision”. That’s not a bad way to err, in principle, but if that is the default position encouraged by the ICC’s umpiring administrators, what is the point of the technological assistance anyway?
Why not just leave all subjective judgments (like leg-befores) to the umpires on the pitch and stick with objective (did it cross/touch the line or not) stuff from the cameras.
However, the most inspired piece of feel-good lunacy of the day-night was Pakistan skipper Shahid Afridi. Pre-game, he told reporters that there would be a surprise in store for the Australians.
“We’ve made some plans against them and you will see tomorrow in the game we will do something new,” were Afridi’s actual words. He was right. Playing three spin options (himself, Abdur Rehman ad Hafeez) he’d reached back into the World Cup past to set up Pakistan for a possible future.
Tailoring his attack to suit the conditions, Afridi, in opening with Rehman alongside Gul, had pulled the same trick as New Zealand captain Martin Crowe did in 1992 with Dipak Patel. Left-arm orthodox spin to open a Cup game.
A master stroke. I’d warrant that nobody in an Australia shirt had expected a return to that deep, dark memory of Eden Park, when Patel spun his magic at that irritatingly warped septagonal location.
“They’ve done the dirty on us again,” was Aussie skipper Allan Border’s reaction to the Patel plan 19 years ago.
All Ponting could offer was that the loss didn’t hurt too much.
Yes, it did.
Maybe not in front of the cameras, for Ricky, but it would have been an entirely different story in the dressing-room once they were turned off.
Simply put, Pakistan fully deserved Saturday’s win – and Crowe deserves a phone call from his apprentice Afridi after presumably studying the tactics of the Kiwi cricketing legend.
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