Hafeez, Gul demolish South Africa
Mohammed Hafeez and Umar Gul turned their tour around to take Pakistan to an emphatic victory and leapfrog three places on the ICC rankings to No.3
Mohammed Hafeez and Umar Gul turned their tour around to take Pakistan to an emphatic victory and leapfrog three places on the ICC rankings to No.3
Scorer: M Venkat Raghav | Commentator: Devashish Fuloria
Thanks everyone for sticking around. I just hope the pitch has not dropped. Firdose Moonda's report is being updated as I type. Thanks to Mazher, our statsman as well. This is Devashish Fuloria signing off. Ciao ciao.
Faf du Plessis: "Nothing went to plan. Mainly because of two things - Hafeez played a brilliant innings and our bowling didn't work to a plan. But our bowling did well in the last five overs to keep Pakistan to what we thought was a manageable total. But a five-for and an 80-odd completely changes the game. Pakistan are a dangerous team."
Man of the Match is Mohammad Hafeez: "The credit goes to the coaches, they really worked hard with me. I knew I was only one knock away. The mindset was clear and it was to play positive cricket. Everything I did, it worked for me today. The team was eager to perform as we didn't have a good time in Tests. Umar showed the way with brilliant bowling as he is the senior bowler. We were very happy with the crowd support. We showed character, we wanted to do well and it is a special occasion for everyone in the team. The win will help us going into the ODIs"
luke: "SA should be just a little careful in their general approach to cricket. IMO England took as long as it did to playing top level stuff partly due to their light-hearted approach to non-Test forms of cricket. SA have the long form sussed but ODIs and T20s are a mystery to them still. Kirsten was brought in to address that (and possibly their mental strength) and we can say he's so far failed in one of those areas."
Fida Khattak: "There were three "on hat-trick" occasions in one innings. (twice on umar gul's bowling and once on hafeez's). Has that ever happened before in any form of the game?"
Nisar Ahmed: "Remember Faf saying "We would bowl first anyway"; for this?? Cricket is cruel but We Love it."
Shamayel: "Umar Gul gets exactly the same figures again what an upredictable and weird this T20I format is and also how unpredictable Pakistan is."
KJ Abbott c †Kamran Akmal b Umar Gul 2 (5m 2b 0x4 0x6) SR: 100.00
Cricketlover: "Hafeez is making sure he gets the MoM by keeping Gul out of attack! :P"
What a match this is! There is action off every ball. Killer for my fingers.
RJ Peterson c Shahid Afridi b Mohammad Hafeez 13 (23m 14b 1x4 0x6) SR: 92.85
RK Kleinveldt c Umar Akmal b Mohammad Hafeez 22 (8m 7b 1x4 3x6) SR: 314.28
The lack of a major franchise tournament capable of attracting the best players in the world could be undermining the international side
Mohammad Hafeez animatedly defended everyone in the Pakistan setup, specifically the coach Dav Whatmore, with even more gusto than he celebrated their 95-run victory
Before the Powerplay had ended, South Africa knew they had lost the match. Focusing on that would not give proper attention to where they were actually defeated and du Plessis believed that was on the field
Mohammed Hafeez and Umar Gul turned their tour around to take Pakistan to an emphatic victory and leapfrog three places on the ICC rankings to No.3