**Official** India v Pakistan

[Duncan]

Man, Sanz and tooextracool, will you two please get a room or something? You guys are at it nonstop.

Afridi has been consistent as of late... India will be remember this hiding for a loooong time.

 

[marc71178]

You don't get it, don't you? One swallow doesn't make a summer.

Oh, the irony.

It did when you talked about Dhoni.

 

[marc71178]

Dhoni should obviously be one of the 7 batters and not 6, one specialist batsmen should be thrown out of team. As for allrounder, i''m not sure but i think Powar should be given another chance.

Well, if you want 6 batsmen plus Dhoni, how can you fit in 4 bowlers and an all-rounder?

 

[PAKMAN]

perhaps you should be telling that to the indian team

Its bin my signature for quite a while now

 

[PAKMAN]

I too have always felt Afridi is gifted but plays like a "jat" (or a Pathan as you might say) but today he was a killer.

I have a feeling he will not be comfortable against really quick short stuff on his body but India hasnt had bowlers who can do that since I have been watching and thats from a millenium back . What do you think ?

How is he against short rising very fast stuff?

afridi ne well n truely ''PHATTAY CHAK DITTAY'' as u would say

yes the snorters can trouble him ,but he played lee rather well in australia the ones he gets hold of normally end up in the stands ,it was a treet watchin him in australia hitting mcgrath and leee for cover drive sixes

 

[psxpro]

Damn, I wish I could have watched this, afridi must have been amazing.


Also, why did dhoni only get 11? is this possible or am I reading the scorecard wrong?

 

[Mecnun]

I just watched a recording... amazing innings. He is a beast. Zaheer was the only one who escaped cause he varied his pace well. Bala, Kumble and Mongia were shellshocked..Mind you almost everyone was in the ground, even the pak team..

 

[deeps]

bouncer, or anyone else for that matter.

any chance of uploading a highlights reel? obviously it wont' fit on the cricketweb server, but this bein such a special knock, perhaps the CW staff can organise some hosting for a while?

 

[deeps]

That looks a silly excuse to support pace attacks that lack power.

i'm not supporting any pace attack. All i said, was that there is no point in selecting a bowler, based soley on his pace.

Rana has shown, it doesn't take pace, to get wickets. Mcgrath has shown over the years... Pollock. etc etc.

The pitches in india do not support the pacers and a quality batsman will take them apart. The indian selectors have got the right bowlers bowling for them, but the bowlers need to have more spirit... they have no heart. Need to learn from Rana.

What Rana doesn't have in talent, he makes up with heart.

Balaji is a very good bowler, who has struggled since coming back from injury. However it's been afridi that has mucked up his figures. He needs to learn where to bowl, to afridi (dont ask me where that is, coz i have nfi)

Zaheer is bowlin with more heart nowadays, and is bowlin extremely well, but hasn't got much to show for it.

Nehra is also much improved, and he is taking his cricket ALOT more seriously now. You can tell, the way he gets annoyed when someone misfields, the way he conducts himself when he's fielding etc. He's a much changed player.

Finally pathan, who needs to have a stint back in domestic cricket. His head has gotten too big, and he does not have the work ethic, commitment etc. to do well at international level atm. He needs to get that hunger back. When he first came on the scene, he had that. He was a fighter, but his spirits seem broken or something. Once he cemented his place in the team, and all the advertising companies decided to make him a king, he has relaxed too much.

I think the best thing that the indian board could ever do, is to place a ban on indian players doing advertisements. Some players let it get to their heads, and think they are better than they are. At a time when they should be concentrating on their cricket, they are too busy filiming ads etc.

The Australians do ads as well, but quiet honestly, they do so much less ads and the ads dont make them out to be superstars.

in my opinion, it's the ad's that really made pathans head so big.

 

[chipmonk]

Afridi mauls India with his bat

by C. Rajshekhar Rao, KANPUR, India,

Friday - Shahid Afridi smashed the second-fastest one-day century off 45 deliveries as Pakistan trounced India by five wickets on Friday to take an unassailable 3-2 lead in the six-match series.

The swashbuckling opener hit 10 boundaries and nine sixes in a brilliant 102 off 46 balls to help Pakistan overtake India's challenging 249-6 with 47 deliveries to spare at the Green Park here. India must now win the final one-dayer in New Delhi on Sunday in front of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to draw the series.


Afridi, who holds the world record for the fastest one-day hundred off 37 balls against Sri Lanka in 1996, equalled the second-best effort of 45 deliveries by West Indian Brian Lara against Bangladesh in Dhaka in 1999.

The 25-year-old fell one ball after reaching his fourth hundred when he was bowled by off-spinner Harbhajan Singh playing a rare defensive shot to the great relief of the awe-struck Indian fielders.

Fellow opener Salman Butt, enjoying a ringside view of Afridi's fireworks, contributed just 21 in a first-wicket stand of 131 which came off 14.2 overs.

Pakistan strolled comfortably after Afridi's dismissal, taking another 28 overs to get the remaining 119 runs for victory with Shoaib Malik making 41.

Pakistan raced to 55 in the first five overs, 43 off those runs coming off Afridi's blade in 15 deliveries with two sixes off Laxmipathy Balaji and three in one over off Anil Kumble.

Afridi, who had in the past twice scored half-centuries off 18 deliveries, needed 20 this time to reach his individual 50. When Pakistan posted 100 on the board, Afridi's own score was 75.

Fortune too appeared to favour the brave as Afridi was caught off a Dinesh Mongia no-ball when he reached 79.

Afridi's breathtaking strokeplay prompted an Indian spectator to display a signboard which read: "Afridi, please spare us for friendship's sake."

Afridi missed breaking his own world record of 11 sixes in a one-day innings he shares with Sanath Jayasuriya of Sri Lanka.

 

[Bouncer]

bouncer, or anyone else for that matter.

any chance of uploading a highlights reel? obviously it wont' fit on the cricketweb server, but this bein such a special knock, perhaps the CW staff can organise some hosting for a while?

I can post the link, but Mod's already gave a yellow card for doing that ones...so email me or catch me at MSN onlybuddies@hotmail.com

 

[Zinzan]

i really doubt afridi will score on this pitch, as poor as the indian bowling is.

hindsight is a great thing

I think we can safely say he scored

 

[honestbharani]

Some comments by fans are absolutely pathetic. They blame Dravid's captaincy fairly and squarely for this defeat, and say that the last two were not too bad, and think of different excuses to make him look bad as captain. What next? They've supported one captain who's failed for five years, and are ready to pounce on the new man when he's not regular as captain and just has one defeat in a long time!

You are being too harsh on Sourav. He has NOT failed for all 5 years... But yeah, as of this moment, Dravid is the best man to lead the side.

 

[honestbharani]

afridi ne well n truely ''PHATTAY CHAK DITTAY'' as u would say

yes the snorters can trouble him ,but he played lee rather well in australia the ones he gets hold of normally end up in the stands ,it was a treet watchin him in australia hitting mcgrath and leee for cover drive sixes

No, but that was when he was in the middle order and he was more of a bowler/allrounder there. He basically had a licence to do whatever he wanted as a batter. It would have been different had he been opening.

 

[Zinzan]

Afridi?? he's a fluke , how can he be a key man??

Key men are Inzi,Youhanna, malik and Butt.

Silly silly boy...lucky your not a betting man

 

[shankar]

Finally pathan, who needs to have a stint back in domestic cricket. His head has gotten too big, and he does not have the work ethic, commitment etc. to do well at international level atm. He needs to get that hunger back. When he first came on the scene, he had that. He was a fighter, but his spirits seem broken or something. Once he cemented his place in the team, and all the advertising companies decided to make him a king, he has relaxed too much.

I think the best thing that the indian board could ever do, is to place a ban on indian players doing advertisements. Some players let it get to their heads, and think they are better than they are. At a time when they should be concentrating on their cricket, they are too busy filiming ads etc.

The Australians do ads as well, but quiet honestly, they do so much less ads and the ads dont make them out to be superstars.

in my opinion, it's the ad's that really made pathans head so big.

I don't know where you got the idea of Pathan's head becoming too big for him. Maybe you got that idea on watching a few overzealous fans of his. But from what I've seen of him during the matches and from interviews, he seems a very hard-working,committed youngster with his head in the right place (and of the right size ). About the advertisements, I've not seen a single one where he's shown as a super-star or larger than life personality.

His problem this series has been that after the injury there's something wrong with his action and he's not been able to swing the ball consistently and hence has been very ordinary at his pace.

 

[Zinzan]

wat kind of indian r u that cant bac ur country up. How can i be asking for trouble wen wer the one that started all this crap. Honestly it's realy bad to mess with a South African coz we dnt talk we bite! So bugger off gay boy

Perhaps someone should start an under 5s cricket forum

 

[shoot_me]

Silly silly boy...lucky your not a betting man

it's like that one dude in england last year who bet 50,000 that pakistan would win. too bad his friend won the bet and the poor guy ended up having to sell his house. sad story.

 

[Zinzan]

Its a fair point that Afridi has been incredibly inconsistent in his career to date, especially given his natural ability.

However I just did a filter on his batting stats in his 20 ODI's which reads....

20 16 2 500 102 58 56* 35.71 1 2 1

So he is slowly becoming more consistent

Goodknows what his strikerate would have been in these last 20 games given that his career strike rate has shot up from 103 to almost 107 (106.97 ) in the last 6 months

Given he's still only 25 years old....he may hit 300-350 sixes in his one-day career

 

[Deja moo]

I just watched a recording... amazing innings. He is a beast. Zaheer was the only one who escaped cause he varied his pace well. Bala, Kumble and Mongia were shellshocked..Mind you almost everyone was in the ground, even the pak team..

Zaheer was the only one to escape unscathed because he was lucky enought to bowl predominantly at Butt. Go check the highlights. It was amazing how Afridi not taking a single off the last ball of the previous over saved him. While he did maintain a good line, IMO not having to bowl at Afridi too much within the first 10 overs saved him the trauma.