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Pak knocked out
of the Cup by the Irish! |
March 17, 2007 (Link to
Scorecard)
The 17th of March in the year 2007 was a day of
triumps of the so-called minnows over the
bigwigs of the sub-continent, namely Pakistan
and India. On one hand, we had Bangladesh
humbling India, on the other hand Pakistan went
on to suffer an even more humiliating defeat.
People expecting a massacre of the lambs at the
Sabina Park, Jamaica were taken by surprise as
it turned out to be a rebellion by the
underdogs. On a pitch that was difficult to bat
on, Trent Johnston called correctly and sent
Pakistan in after winning the toss , and the
rest is history. Pakistani wickets fell like
nine pins as Irish bowlers drew blood after
blood. The entire Pakistani team was back in the
pavillion for a paltry 132 runs after 45.4
overs. Imran Nazir, Mohammad Yousuf, Kamran
Akmal and Mohanmmad Sami were the only Pakistani
batsmen to reach double figures. Botha returned
with the 5th most economical figures in the
history of ODIs, 8-4-5-2! The other main wicket
takers being Rankin and McCallan with three and
two wickets respectively.The Irish spectators
might be forgiven for thinking that they were
experiencing hallucinations!!
The Irish innings did not start off too fluently
either, with Bray and Morgan back in the
pavillion and the score reading just 15 after
5.3 overs.They were up against a Pakistani
attack that boasted of the likes of Sami, Gul
and the one change Iftikhar Anjum with all of
them generating deadly pace and accuracy. But
Niall O'Brien, the left-handed wicket keeper
batsman had other ideas.The soutpaw went onto
enter the history books as he became the
mainstay of the Irish innings. When he was out,
he had scored a fluent 72 of 107 deliveries out
of the Irish score of 108. After that it was a
tale of stout resistance by the batsmen to come,
particularly Niall O'Brien's brother Kevin
O'Brien. Rain and bad light briefly stopped
play, but when the game resumed, Duckworth-Lewis
could not play spoilsport to Ireland's advances
as they successfully chased down the revised
target of 128 from 47 overs with 5.2 overs to
spare and 3 wickets in hand. Right now it is
carnival time for the Irish, as they lead the
points tally in Group D and are most likely to
make it to the super 8s.
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