Saturday, January 28, 2012

Spectacular Rehman seals the series for Pakistan

Pakistan won the toss, elected to bat on a slow pitch and got off to a cautious start. The openers put on a half-century partnership before Swann struck the first blow, cleaning up Taufeeq Umar for 16. After dropping Hafeez off his own bowling off the previous delivery, Monty Panesar shattered Hafeez’ timber off the next to make it 61/2. Broad then produced two beauties to rattle the woodwork of Younus Khan and Azhar Ali. A 100-run partnership between Asad Shafiq and Misbah-ul-Haq resurrected Pakistan’s innings as Shafiq brought up his 4th Test Fifty. He finally departed trapped in front off Swann. Poor fielding from England saw them put down Misbah twice in the day and that cost England dearly as he powered Pakistan to 256 with a half-century, despite losing the wickets of Adnan Akmal and Abdur Rehman late on day one. 

The skipper finally got out for 83 off the second over of the second day. Broad trapped him in front and Pakistan were bundled out for 257. Broad was by far the best bowler for England as he picked up four wickets.

In reply, England got off to a shaky start losing Strauss early for 11. But the pair of Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott played sensibly and  strengthened England’s hold with a 139-run partnership for the second wicket. A late fightback from Saeed Ajmal, who picked up three wickets in the evening session of day two, saw them pick up 4/75 and reduce the English to 207/5. But a courageous batting effort of 58 not out from Stuart Broad powered England to a first innings lead of 70. Cook was the top scorer for the English with 94, while Trott chipped in with 74 valuable runs. For Pakistan, Ajmal and Mohammad Hafeez picked up four and three wickets respectively.

Pakistan again started off cautiously in the second innings, but Monty Panesar and Graeme Swann pegged them back to 54 for 4 with wonderful spell of spin bowling. A late resuscitation in the second innings on day 3 saw Pakistan pile up a lead of 55 runs as Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq powered Pakistan to 125/4 at the end of day 3. The pair added 88 runs for the  fifth wicket before the latter was dismissed for 43 early on day 4. Anderson and Broad picked up the wickets of Azhar Ali, who scored a patient 68, and Adnan Akmal(13) with the new ball. Panesar then cleaned up the tail as he picked up his 9th five-wicket haul in Tests. Panesar, making his comeback to the team after missing 29 Tests, was the pick of the bowlers for England as he finished with figures of 6/62.  

Click here for the Scorecard

Needing 145 runs to win, England got off to a slow and sluggish start and their tactic of playing cautiously backfired as they had no answer to the spin attack of Rehman and Ajmal. Rehman bowled with great heart and destroyed the batting order with a maiden five-wicket haul gaining the best Bowling Efficiency of 168 in the second innings, while Ajmal took his 100th wicket as the spin duo bowled out England for an abject 72 and powered their team to a 72-run victory. Pakistan take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the Three match series. 

Abdur Rehman was named the Man-of-the-Match for his superb performance of 8/92 in the Test Match.

Zimbabwe reach new low, get bowled out twice in a day

In a stunning turn of events, New Zealand picked up 20 wickets for 194 runs as they bowled out Zimbabwe twice on Day 3, winning the one-off Test by an innings and a mammoth 301 runs.

It was Zimbabwe marking a return to Test cricket in the last few months and this was their first overseas tour since 2005. They started well with Brendan Taylor calling correctly at the toss. The track looked green and he immediately chose to bowl, hoping that his seam bowlers will strike early.

The openers Brendon McCullum and Martin Guptill started off with a bang, adding 124 before there were a couple of wobbles which brought Zimbabwe back into the game. However, skipper Ross Taylor scored a fine century and had good partnerships in the middle and stood unbeaten in the end, on 111. The Kiwis ended the day on 331/5, a day which did not belong to the visitors at all, as their bowlers struggled.

Day 2 began positively for the Kiwis as they scored quickly but lost Ross Taylor in the process. No, not his dismissal, but an injury to his calf. The hosts had reached 392/5 when rain played spoilsport and washed out the remainder of the day.

On the morning of Day 3, Vitori struck early, cleaning up Bracewell(11). Southee(44) then added a quickfire 74 with Watling before holing out to Waller off Cremer. The Kiwis declared on 495/7 as soon as Watling got to his century. However, it was Ross Taylor who finished with a better Batting Momentum of 120. The bowling was good in patches with Cremer picking up 2 wickets and finishing with a Bowling Efficiency of 55.

Zimbabwe were then caught unawares by the Kiwi bowling. Martin and Boult reduced them to 20/5 by Lunch and a few minutes after the break, they were bundled out for 51, their lowest Test total. Only Waller(23) managed to reach double figures. It was a combined bowling effort by the team and Tim Southee earned the best Bowling Efficiency of 96.

Needless to say, the Kiwis enforced the follow-on and reduced Zim to 12/5 before Chakabva(63), Cremer(26) and S Masakadza(21) gave some respect to the total as the team was bowled out for 143, losing by an innings and 301 runs.

This is the second time that Zimbabwe have been bowled out twice in a day, both by the same opposition. This is New Zealand’s biggest Test victory and Zimbabwe’s biggest Test loss.

Regis Chakabva top scored with 63 and ended up with a Batting Momentum of 57. For New Zealand, Chris Martin took 6 wickets and finished with a Bowling Efficiency of 267.

Have a look at the scorecard.

New Zealand finished with a whopping Castrol Index of 322  as compared to 69 of Zimbabwe.

Chris Martin was named the Man Of The Match and was also the best performer of the game, with a value of 174 on the Castrol Index. For Zimbabwe, Graeme Cremer bagged a value of 67.