Pakistan All Out at 187 Showing an Ordinary Batting Performance in the World Cup Cricket 2007 Opener against the Host West Indies

West Indies starts the World Cup Cricket 2007 with an excellent win over the former world cup champion and one of the cricket powers of the world Pakistan by 54 runs. Pakistan showed a bad batting performance showing barely any maturity which causes the defeat in the first match of the world cup.

Chasing 242 runs, Pakistan got all out 187. The top order of their batting line up failed to impress at the first hand. Then in the middle order, though Inzamam-ul-Haq and Mohammad Yousuf tried to make a base for their innings, they were very slow in taking runs which created much pressure on them as well as at the later batsmen. Mohammad Yousuf scored 37 facing 72 balls and Inzamam-ul-Haq scored 36 playing 65 balls. It is true that they came at the crease when Pakistan lost three early wickets. However, they have to take the responsibility of not playing some more shots from the beginning. That is why; the difference between balls and runs became huge which at the later part of the innings which created a lot of pressure on the let order batsman. However, it was Shoaib Malik, who played an excellent innings of 62 runs facing just 54 balls in which he played one 6 and six 4s before getting out as the last batsman of the Pakistan innings.

On the other hand, it was all about West Indies bowlers and their good bowling performance. Daren Powell and Jerome Taylor gave started well taking 3 top order batsman early in the innings. Having played an cameo innings of 32 just off 15 with bat, Dwayne Smith took 3 important wickets- Mohammad Yousuf, Inzamam-el-Haq and Kamran Akmal. In his 10 overs he conceded just 36 runs. Dwayne Bravo also took 3 wickets giving 42 runs in 9 overs. Daren Powell took 2 wickets and Jerome Taylor as well as Corey Collymore took one wicket each.

So, I think, it was a team effort of West Indies while it was a failure of whole team for Pakistan. It is true that Pakistan does not have their three best bowlers with them; today I saw that the existing bowlers are also very potential and can play well enough to create chances for the batsmen but the point is that to what extent, Pakistan batsmen can make the best use of the chances.

Cricinfo