NOTTINGHAM: Pakistan beat South Africa in Twenty20 World Cup first semifinal as Afridi found form to his first fifty of the Twenty20 cricket.
Unusually for Afridi, he batted for 34 balls without clearing the ropes once. This was a reflection of a tricky pitch, which offered appreciable turn and some variation in pace. But he still managed to cudgel 51 runs - his first half-century in all international cricket for 28 innings.
Pakistan’s total of 149 for four might not sound like much. But given he difficulty of the conditions, South Africa knew they would have to make a fast start, because the middle-overs were going to be testing against the spinners.
In fact, they only got to the end of the sixth over before Afridi came on and rattled one straight through Herschelle Gibbs’s defences. In the next over he persuaded AB de Villiers, South Africa’s most dangerous batsman to drag one onto his stumps. And when he had finished, with figures of 4-0-16-2.
All the pre-publicity for this match had painted it as a conflict between art and science, method and improvisation, with South Africa providing the rigour and Pakistan the unpredictable inspiration.Yet Younis Khan’s team showed that they are more than just a talented bunch of sloggers.
Pakistan controlled their innings to the finest detail. Younis said before the match that 150 would be a decent total to set, and that was precisely what happened.
The first four overs of the game were the most frenetic, as the openers went off like a pair of shaken-up coke cans. In Shahzaib Hasan’s case, the eruption didn’t last long: he skied an attempted pull to mid-on off the second ball he faced.
At the other end, Kamran Akmal did manage to disturb Wayne Parnell’s calm, taking 14 runs off his first over. But Akmal hooked a catch straight up in the air.
Pakistan now sent in Shoaib Malik to stabilise the innings - a task he achieved rather too well, if such a thing is possible, by collecting only 13 runs off his first 21 balls.
The scoring rate would have got completely bogged down if they hadn’t had Afridi unfurling some of his trademark muscle shots at the other end. In his best passage of play, Afridi took four boundaries off successive balls from off-spinner Johan Botha.
The first three were all virtually identical: lofted drives powered over extra-cover. But the last showed a touch of delicacy, as he opened the face and ran the ball down to third man.
Shahid Afridi won his fourth Man of the Match award – most by a Pakistani player. He was previously at level with Umar Gul with three awards. In fact only Sanath Jayasuriya (6) has won more awards than him in this format of the game.
The 67-run partnership between Afridi and Shoaib Malik is Pakistan’s best for any wicket against South Africa, obliterating the 47-run stand between Kamran Akmal and Mohammad Hafeez for the second wicket at Johannesburg in 2006-07.
Shoaib Malik, on 31, completed his 500 runs in Twenty20 internationals, becoming the second Pakistan after Misbah-ul-Haq and only the fifth batsman overall to do so.
Jacques Kallis (64) became the leading run-scorer in the tournament, taking his aggregate to 238- ahead of Sri Lankan Tillakaratne Dilshan’s tally of 221 runs.
Umar Gul went wicketless for the first time in the tournament. He, in fact, had taken at least a wicket in previous 10 consecutive matches. Saeed Ajmal became the leading wicket-taker in the tournament equalling Umar Gul’s tally.
The victory margin of 7 runs was the narrowest for Pakistan in a T20 international. It was also the narrowest defeat for South Africa against any country.
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