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Pakistan End World Cup with Consolation Win over Zim
Zimbabwe and Pakistan both ended their involvement in this year's World Cup yesterday, with Pakistan securing a 93-run win - under somewhat farcical circumstances - after a lengthy rain delay.
Zimbabwe won the toss and elected to field, and Pakistan immediately set about building themselves a formidable total, with Imran Nazir being the cornerstone of the innings. He smashed his way to 160 runs, including 14 fours and 8 sixes, before finally departing in the 45th over, while around him most of the Pakistani batsmen made useful contributions, with the exceptions of Mohammad Yousuf (3) and Mohammad Sami (5). Pakistan were eventually bowled out for an impressive 349, their highest World Cup score.
The wicket of Inzamam-ul-Haq was marked by both sides, with Zimbabwe's players coming in from their fielding positions to wish the Pakistan captain well in his final one-day international, and the Pakistan team giving their iconic leader a guard of honour on his way off the pitch - gestures that moved the big man to tears in a day that was full of emotion.
In reply, Zimbabwe got off to another bad start as Vusi Sibanda, Justice Chibhabha and Friday Kasteni all fell early to leave Zimbabwe in trouble - again - on 14/3. Taylor and Matsikenyeri were left with the task of stabilising the innings, but never got the chance as the rain came down in the 11th over. After a lengthy delay, play eventually resumed late in the day, to the obvious disapproval of Zim coach Kevin Curran. With Zimbabwe's innings reduced to 20 overs, they were left with an impossible Duckworth-Lewis target of 193, leaving them needing 163 off 58 balls. With the match clearly beyond them, Zimbabwe opted for a Twenty20-style "hit-and-giggle" innings, putting on another 69 runs before being bowled out in the final over of the match.
Question: all World Cup matches have rain days set aside for them - would it really have hurt to allow Zimbabwe to come back on Thursday and try to complete a full 50 overs, and then at least have given them a chance (however unlikely) of running up the required total? Forcing the match to end within the day by giving Zimbabwe a clearly impossible target serves no-one's interests, and makes the whole idea of rain days redundant.
That said, though, this was Pakistan's day - they had dedicated this match to the memory of Bob Woolmer, and in many ways it would have seemed churlish if Zimbabwe had dared to win it. For the first match in the tournament Pakistan showed what they were capable of, and were deserved winners. For Zimbabwe, it's time once again to reflect of the failures of the top order - they'll have a good long break to do that before their next scheduled fixtures.
Pakistan 349 (49.5/50 overs; Imran Nazir 160, Chigumbura 3/50), Zimbabwe 99 (19.1/20 overs; Chigumbura 27, Shahid Afridi 3/20). Pakistan win by 93 runs (D/L method). Check below the cut for the scorecard.
Pakistan innings (50 overs) Kamran Akmal c Taylor b Chigumbura 15 Imran Nazir c Matsikenyeri b Mpofu 160 Shoaib Malik c Chibhabha b Williams 21 Inzamam-ul-Haq c Williams b Mupariwa 37 Mohammad Yousuf c & b Brent 3 Younis Khan run out (Mpofu/Taylor) 28 Shahid Afridi b Brent 16 Mohammad Sami c Utseya b Brent 5 Iftikhar Anjum c Matsikenyeri b Chigumbura 32 Umar Gul b Chigumbura 10 Danish Kaneria not out 6 Extras (lb 2, w 12, nb 2) 16 Total (all out; 49.5 overs; 217 mins) 349 Fall of wickets: 1-31 (Kamran Akmal, 6.3 ov), 2-88 (Shoaib Malik, 17.4 ov), 3-158 (Inzamam-ul-Haq, 27.4 ov), 4-170 (Mohammad Yousuf, 30.4 ov), 5-252 (Younis Khan, 40.1 ov), 6-285 (Shahid Afridi, 43.1 ov), 7-295 (Imran Nazir, 44.1 ov), 8-301 (Mohammad Sami, 45.5 ov), 9-324 (Umar Gul, 47.5 ov), 10-349 (Iftikhar Anjum, 49.5 ov) Bowling O M R W Econ CB Mpofu 10 1 74 1 7.40 (2w) T Mupariwa 10 1 57 1 5.70 (1w) E Chigumbura 6.5 1 50 3 7.31 (1nb, 1w) GB Brent 10 0 68 3 6.80 (3w) SC Williams 6 0 41 1 6.83 (1nb) P Utseya 6 0 46 0 7.66 (1w) CJ Chibhabha 1 0 11 0 11.00 Zimbabwe innings (target: 193 runs from 20 overs) V Sibanda c Imran Nazir b Umar Gul 0 CJ Chibhabha c Inzamam-ul-Haq b Umar Gul 3 F Kasteni c Inzamam-ul-Haq b Mohammad Sami 9 BRM Taylor c Younis Khan b Danish Kaneria 13 S Matsikenyeri run out (Kamran Akmal) 18 E Chigumbura b Shahid Afridi 27 SC Williams c Umar Gul b Danish Kaneria 11 GB Brent b Shahid Afridi 9 P Utseya not out 4 T Mupariwa b Shahid Afridi 0 CB Mpofu c Inzamam-ul-Haq b Mohammad Yousuf 1 Extras (lb 1, w 1, nb 2) 4 Total (all out; 19.1 overs; 82 mins) 99 Fall of wickets: 1-0 (Sibanda, 0.2 ov), 2-12 (Chibhabha, 4.6 ov), 3-14 (Kasteni, 5.3 ov), 4-45 (Taylor, 12.1 ov), 5-45 (Matsikenyeri, 12.2 ov), 6-77 (Chigumbura, 15.1 ov), 7-93 (Williams, 16.6 ov), 8-94 (Brent, 17.2 ov), 9-94 (Mupariwa, 17.5 ov), 10-99 (Mpofu, 19.1 ov) Bowling O M R W Econ Umar Gul 5 1 10 2 2.00 (1nb) Mohammad Sami 5 0 15 1 3.00 (1w) Danish Kaneria 4 0 48 2 12.00 Shahid Afridi 4 0 20 3 5.00 Younis Khan 1 0 5 0 5.00 (1nb) Mohammad Yousuf 0.1 0 0 1 0.00
Comments
I think Zimbabwe will forever regret the chance they let go when they drew with Ireland. That match should have been wrapped up easily but that didn't happen.
I am not so sure whether even coming another day would have helped Zimbabwe because Pakistan had a good total behind them and it was going to take some exceptional batting for Zimbabwe to reach it and surpass it.
I am happy though that they didn't leave the tournament pointless.
Just over 8/over would have been more achievable than the nearly 3/ball target they were left with after D/L was applied - although I admit it would still have been unlikely. It just seemed strange to me that there was a rush to finish the game on the day when that's what rain days are for. The D/L total was also so far beyond achievable that it was fairly clear neither team saw the point of continuing - if the D/L target's clearly unreachable and they don't want to use the rain day, then call it a match and go home.
Yes, the Ireland game should have been won comfortably- in the end Zim let the tension get to them, and the victory was snatched away from Zim by themselves.
I thought the best performance was against the West Indies, Zim got pretty close to them and they were poor in that game. Always likely to be struggling against a highly motivated and emotional Pakistan team.
For me selection was mystifying- batting order seemingly changed at random, as was the bowling line up. Anthony Ireland did well against the Windies and was then omitted for the game with Pakistan. Also, Terry Duffin looked short of form coming back after his injury, but was there really any point in opening up with poor Friday Kasteni? his experiences won't have helped his confidence here and confidence is so important for developing young players.
Zim has to play with its most experienced players and too often the side was mucked about. I would have stuck with the most experienced players and let the youngsaters train and enjoy the experience, only coming in in case of injury.
i was really annoyed too that no Zim replica kit was available at all, other than one rather poor T-shirt (and even that was very hard to find). Were no replicas made, or something, or did so few fans travbel that the ICC simply not bother making them? A real pity, as the kits were smart.
Thanks so much for doing this site, it's a real addition to the very scant information available on Zim cricket outside of the country.
selection of the team was suspcious. why was duffin dropped? katseni is young and inexperienced. the idea of taking him to the world cup instead of masakadza was for me a bit worring. do we have the right people in the selection team. the chopping and changing of duffin and ireland for me is a bit racial. i have this funny feeling that the selectors are being forced to select a maximum of 6 white players only. i am a black zimbabwean. selection should be based on merit only not colour.if u go to the cricinfo site one can buy replica kit for all the test teams but nothing for zim. one wonders what the marketing people in zim cricket are paid for?
Most of the changes after the Ireland match would have simply been a reflex to not having won the match - so that some heads were seen to roll for the team not performing as well as expected. Problem with doing that was that the team for that match was probably as good as they could have selected (although Anthony Ireland should have played in that match instead of Rainsford, as he's been by far the more reliable pace bowler of late).
I understand some of the logic for including Friday Kasteni in the squad: Masakadza's form has been poor lately, Kasteni's an up-and-coming player with some potential and bringing him to the World Cup will have given him some useful experience. But he should have been played in the practice matches only, and only used in the group stage to cover for injury. He's still out of his depth at this level.
Racial selection: probably, but that's been going on for years now - the whole player exodus stems from it - and there's no chance that's going to chance until some way is found to get rid of the current ZC board and replace it with one that understands that results should come ahead of politics. I'd be willing to bet that won't happen until Cde Bob shuffles off the stage...