A view from the Gully (18 June 1999)

18 June 1999

A view from the Gully

Tawfiq Aziz Khan

Saeed Anwar and Wajahatullah Wasti carried their team into the final without much fuss at the Old Trafford on Wednesday. The silky Saeed with sublime touches to his strokes interspersed them with the stamp of ruthlessness. The normally aggressive southpaw restrained himself to strokes that were produced straight from the copy book. With this successive century he enters the record book of this all important tournament of the one-day variety.

Wasti was a perfect foil for Saeed once again. He too excelled himself in stroke play and as the match progressed he grew bold and sent the ball in all parts of the ground. Short on experience the burly 25-year-old Pathan from Peshawar became slightly restive at a time when he was a short distance away from what could be his first ton in World Cup. This was, incidentally, the only success that Cairns and his team could achieve. This was a victory that many captain would dream but very few can hope to achieve. The victory was so emphatic that both Australia or South Africa are bracing themselves for a hard battle in the final on Sunday at Lord's. As the Kiwis posted a modest total on the board on a bright sunny day contrary to forecast, many an eye-brow was raised about the capacity of Pakistan to overhaul that total and they had reasons to be skeptical because of Pakistan's three consecutive defeats, specially their failure to overtake the modest Indian total of 227/6 or Bangladesh total of 223/9. But at the end of the day it was no contest.

The toss was important and the first use of the hard and bouncy wicket was an additional advantage for the Kiwis. Shoaib Akhtar hardly gave any respite to Horne and Astle, the latter was only relieved to see his leg stump flying. Razzaq surprised Horne with a delightful slower delivery as Fleming, Twose and Cairns engaged themselves in the recovery work. But Shoaib came back again and again and each time disturbing the Kiwis with his express deliveries. It is always a great sight to see a fast bowler tearing down the ground under a clear blue sky to hurl deliveries that reach an incredible speed of 96 miles an hour. He may have bear a little costly without being erratic and was mainly responsible for restricting the Kiwis to a moderate total. For a change it was good to see both teams appearing without any apparent signs of pressure at an important match that was a sudden death. Losing the toss must have upset Wasim's game plans but it was not on view. He was cool as a cucumber so was the rest of his team members. And it was a good omen for them.

The Kiwis must have been pleased with their performance until Pakistan started their innings and once Geoff Allott was neutralised the rest of the bowlers appeared like school cricketers. Nothing they did had any effect on the Pakistan openers who put up a new first wicket partnership record of 194 runs in the World Cup.

Into their second final of the World Cup in seven years Akram and his men will be a tough challenge for any opponent.

Source :: The Daily Star