Pakistan Emphatically Gained Revenge

By Saj Sadiq
December 11 2002

A different day, a different Pakistan. What an excellent performance from the Pakistani outfit, as they crushed the South Africans by a record margin of 182 runs. Elahi and Razzaq with the bulk of the runs and the bowling credit goes to Waqar, Sami and Afridi.

What can one say about a team that gets hammered one day, yet a few days later can subject one of the favoured teams for the forthcoming World Cup to a record breaking defeat of 182 runs?

The Pakistan team that turned up at Port Elizabeth today was a Pakistan team that certainly got out of the right side of bed. Right from the quick singles at the start and Afridi's initial brief onslaught one could see that this was, mentally a totally different team to Sunday's.

What I noticed was the ease and the confidence with which Elahi and Razzaq handled the South African pacemen. In my opinion the South African's only have one world class bowler and that is obviously their skipper, the rest are bowler-friendly wicket bullies.

One must also pick up on the lack of variety that Pollock has at his disposal. When things are going for a captain, variety in a bowling attack is not a problem, but one needs a wicket from nowhere or a partnership broken, it's generally the variation in a bowling attack that dose the trick.

Also what must be heartening for the Pakistanis was the lack of ideas and focus that Pollock displays when his team are under the cosh. This is an area that the Aussies focused upon in their back to back series against South Africa.

Abdul Razzaq received a lot of stick after his dismal performance in the first match, but today's innings in my opinion was one of his finest in one-dayers. Temperament, technique, aggression were all evident. If Pakistan are to come close to lifting the World Cup trophy then this man will have to be close to his peak.

Salim Elahi must have been a big surprise to the South African's today. Very much like Pakistan bowling to Rhodes on Sunday, Pollock's men tended to bowl to Elahi's strengths outside the off stump. This innings should give him a lot of confidence and he deservedly won the man of the match award.

With a healthy score of 335 to defend, most bowling attacks would feel confident, and this confidence once Gibbs was dismissed, was displayed by all the Pakistani bowlers. Waqar seemed much more fluent today and the old aggression was there, Sami although still bowling short at times has the knack of picking up wickets and generating blistering pace. Afridi's bowling was excellent and his dismissal of Pollock was a beauty.

Also the urgency, the encouragement and the backing of players could be clearly heard on the stump microphones. It made a pleasant change to having to listen to the annoying shrieks of Ntini.

Finally, the fielding in both of these matches has been the best I can remember for a long time and long may it continue.

Pakistan march onto East London for Friday's match with renewed confidence and one hopes that the same Pakistan turn up for that match as did for today's emphatic victory. As for the South African's, expect them to be come back strong as their pride will have been hurt today.