Pak India Clash on 19th June

Well played Pakistan but it wasn't your day

The iconic clash on 19th June 2010, in the Lankan city of Dambulla was a treat to watch for both Pakistani and Indian cricket fans and players, as it was an edge of the seat contest which although ended in favour of Indians but it also cemented a fact that importance of ODI's have not dimmed (although I might sound like Ricky Ponting or ICC CEO and their other managers ;)).

At first the way Pakistanis played, I personally was disappointed with their efforts at the depth of the inning where they had to accelerate, and its my personal opinion that players like Younus Khan and Mohammad Yousuf could have steadied the ship in order to touch the magical 300 mark, which they didn't and was admitted even by Shahid Afridi in his post match press conference. It would be unfair just to criticize Pakistan for bad fielding as during Indian fielding, Indians too dropped catches and miss-fielded, but yeah they managed to reduce Pakistan to a par score which India's batting power could easily manage to chase under-lights.

But it is justified to criticize on the decision making and field setting according to situation, for instance they way Shoaib Akhtar was bowling today against the Bangladeshis, if he could had bowled with the same zeal and enthusiasm against the Indians and specially to so called Indian Hero Harbhajan Singh aka Bhajji, i.e. bowling in-swinging yorkers instead of short pitch and short of the length (not SoAL blog guys =P) deliveries, things would have been difficult for Bhajji to score that much, although must give credit to Bhajji for keeping his cools and showed courage, but it could have avoided.

So its literally unfair and useless to criticize Pakistani players for losing the match on small points, Pakistan did fought and even in the Indian Dressing Room, till Bhajji didn't hit the penultimate sixer, they were tensed. For Pakistan it was more like the same what happened in the Wedding City i.e. St. Lucia where Pakistanis were stunned with the heroics of Mike Hussey last over spanking to Saeed Ajmal and this time it was Mohammad Aamer, the legacy continued.

Any how, now the 19th of June 2010 has gone and Pakistan and Bangladesh are the two countries who'd be boarding their tickets for the UK, as India and Sri Lanka would be competing with each other in the finals (may the best team win), Bangladesh to complete their later leg of bilateral ODI series with England and Pakistan to compete against the Aussies in their home-series following bilateral series against the English in difficult conditions in English summer where Pakistanis would complete their English summer.