Umars snatch win for Pakistan

AFP

Umar Akmal and Umar Gul dragged Pakistan out of the jaws of defeat as they defied the South Africans to script a two-wicket win.

Umar Gul played the innings of his life, carving out his top T20 international score of 32 off 17 balls while Umar Akmal re-emphasised his abilities with an unbeaten 43 off 41 balls as Pakistan final scrambled home by two wickets with two balls to spare.

Neither team wanted to win this one, it seems. South Africa played right into Pakistan’s hands with some unimaginative batting to start with, and then Pakistan made a right royal hash of the very moderate total.

The two Umars were involved in an improbable 49-run eighth-wicket stand which dragged Pakistan from a losing 76 for seven to a near-winning 125 for eight. Chasing South Africa’s 133/6, Pakistan ended at 136 for eight in 19.4 overs.

Akmal was left with having to score nine runs off the last over. After two dots, he hammered Morne Morkel for a six, which essentially sealed the game.

The contest was an agony in turn for supporters of both teams as neither seemed to have a winning formula in place. The only people who would be addressing the game with unbridled delight would be statisticians – rarely would you ever see so many bowlers, as many as eight, striking gold in their first overs.

Robin Peterson had a double delight and that opened the match up. Bowling the fourth over of the innings, he was carted for a six by Mohammad Hafeez but then a classic left-armer’s delivery had the Pakistan skipper swatting air as his counterpart AB de Villiers whipped off the bails.

Nasir Jamshed gave Peterson his second with a mindless yahoo, a lack of intelligence that was seen in all quarters.

Dale Steyn steamed in to get rid of Imran Nazir with a snorter earlier. Then Johan Botha had a first-ball wicket as Kamran Akmal tried a cut a saw his stumps shattered.

Jacques Kallis and JP Duminy then made merry as Shoaib Malik and Shahid Afridi continued the mindlessness, hoisting easy offerings into the sky.

The run-rate, a very gettable 6.65 at the beginning of the inning, had crossed 11 by the time Yasir Arafat was rocked by Steyn. It seemed all over bar the shouting.

The South African innings had a remarkable statistic. Four bowlers –Arafat, Saeed Ajmal, Hafeez and Gul – claimed wickets in their first overs. That in itself was something that rattled the batting to a large extent.

But the real dummy was sold by Pakistan in opening their bowling with left-arm spinner Raza Hasan. The 20-year-old from Sialkot, who replaced Sohail Tanveer in the XI, got the ball to skid and also bounce, making life difficult for Richard Levi and Hashim Amla. He should have had Amla, but Kamran Akmal made a hash of a stumping opportunity.

The ball tended to stop a little, and Arafat benefitted as Amla played a shade early to lop an easy catch into the cover region.

The same hesitancy in the pace of the wicket, combined with the profligacy of the SA batsmen saw them slide to 28 for three at the beginning of the seventh over.

Levi tried to outwit Ajmal with a reverse sweep with predictable results, while Kallis, again a victim of the ball stopping, patted Hafeez straight to Afridi.

With the overs passing and runs not coming any clip whatsoever, Duminy and Farhaan Behardien tried to stitch together  a partnership till Behardien ran down to Hafeez and was left stranded.

Eventually, it was Duminy’s 48 and a 35 from De Villiers that kept South Africa in the match. The stand of 44 and some long handle towards the end gave South Africa what then looked like a pretty meager total.
Teams
Pakistan: Mohammad Hafeez (c), Imran Nazir, Nasir Jamshed, Kamran Akmal (wk), Shoaib Malik, Umar Akmal, Shahid Afridi, Yasir Arafat, Raza Hasan, Umar Gul, Saeed Ajmal
South Africa: RE Levi, HM Amla, JH Kallis, AB de Villiers (c & wk), JP Duminy, F Behardien, JA Morkel, J Botha, RJ Peterson, DW Steyn, M Morkel