The first over of the match, sailed by Shaheen Shah Afridi, was a good over. It wasn't the great over that we've come to anticipate from Afridi but it was a good over. He forced Pakistan to take a slightly ludicrous review off the first ball and tried to push for another veritably auspicious one off the fourth, but else it went well. He was not straining too hard for that full- length ball that he hasn't been suitable to nail right of late. He showed signs he was willing to mix his length and off five balls he conceded just one run.
Off one however, the fifth ball of the over, he went a little too full. It shaped in a touch as well. No matter. This is the Chinnaswamy. The boundaries then are served Size Extra Small. The pitch is true. There may only have been four ODIs at the colosseum in the last 10 times but we have all seen the IPL. We all know the feats of white- ball fur magic that are written then. Also, facing up was Mitch Marsh and there's no cleaner megahit of a justice ball right now. With minimal fuss, he launched a six straight down the ground.
It was a veritably Mitch Marsh shot. The over read four blotches, one slight error, one outside. In not quite the way Pakistan would have wanted, the tone was set for utmost of the rest of this innings.
Hasan Ali sailed eight fleck balls in his first two overs. He began his alternate over from round the gate though with such a afloat leg- refuse half- blitz it would've been rude had David Warner turned down the invite to scoop it over fine leg for six. He ended the over with a wide length ball that Marsh grated through point. In between there were three fleck balls.
Iftikhar Ahmed, called up far earlier than he might have been awaiting and turning out to be a far better part- time option than anyone anticipated, sailed a decent eighth over. Good lengths, nice brickbats, some blotches. piecemeal from the third ball which was a bitsy bit short, a infinitesimal bit wide, and bam, meet Warner's cut shot. He may be cuddlier now but that cut shot is still mean as hell.
Usama Mir came on for the 11th over and sailed a decent bone
. Mixed the flight, mixed the pace a little, got some turn, sailed three fleck balls. He also sailed one that was a bitsy bit short, a infinitesimal bit wide and bam, meet the Warner cut. Again. It's still mean as hell.
This pattern would repeat itself time and time again in the first 35 overs of the Australia innings. Lots of fleck balls, lots of boundary balls. Artificially this feels like a veritably Pakistani malaise, especially of this attack good enough bowlers to coliseum good balls, but not enough of them for long enough. In Bengaluru however, this pattern formed in record- breaking extremis Australia's aggregate was the loftiest made by a platoon( since we began our ball- by- ball records in 2002) where 50 or further of the balls they faced were fleck balls. Pakistan sailed 152 fleck balls. But, they also conceded 10 sixes in the first 25 overs, the most they have conceded in the first half of an ODI innings. Two games agone
, against Sri Lanka, Pakistan sailed 144 fleck balls-47.8- and still conceded 345.
It's delicate to be too harsh on the bowling especially on a ground that's always veritably harsh on bowlers. Pakistan were playing then for the first time. They had clocked the lower confines in training. They knew it would be tough. Their fast bowlers worked on hitting the right lengths in training, immaculately nearly around back of a good length and at the wholes always.
By all accounts those sessions went well, but in the heat of a World Cup game, it did not restate. We are talking a fairly bitsy area of this pitch you can hit and not be taken for runs out. And indeed also the line must be super tight range is a sin, too straight a idiocy. In those first 20 overs, where much of the game was shaped, though Pakistan tried they did not hit that spot frequently enough and the perimeters were cruel. When they hit back of a length( as recorded by our ball- by- ball data), they conceded at a strike rate of84.61; when they hit length, they went at nearly 140. It's not a massive difference in terms of bases, but the costs of missing it's significant.
" We knew this ground is notorious for a boundary jubilee," Pakistan's bowling trainer Morne Morkel said latterly." outspoken we blurted some soft boundaries- that was one of our crucial discussion points, to keep hitting the sundeck and keep the wholes in play. We know in India any bit of range you can throw your hands through the line. That was one area we demanded.
still, we can live with that," If they hit or forced some good shots. But we could not string enough balls on the wholes, that is the literacy we will take, the advancements we need to make. Those are the small perimeters. They will hit your good balls for four, but can we exclude our bad balls and coliseum less chance of bad balls especially outspoken?"
The one man- well, boy really who was bringing that control this time, who was hitting the right lengths for the pitches he sailed on more constantly is, of course, not then. A number of sides are dealing with the absence of big names in this event, so Pakistan are hardly alone in that mischance, nor can they go to dwell on it.
But the loss of Naseem Shah, in a side where depth and the readiness of that depth has always felt thin and stretched, hits twice on days like this. It has put a lesser burden on Afridi( who at least verified then he can carry it) and asked Hasan and Haris Rauf to drift outside their comfort zones.
" Naseem Shah is a quality bowler and if you look at his stats, the thickness he gave us with the new ball outspoken was amazing," Morkel conceded." The cooperation he formed with Shaheen was fantastic. It's meant slightly new places for Hasan Ali and Haris Rauf with the new ball in the powerplay.
still, they're guys used to bowling outside the powerplay," If you look at their stats. They are learning, they are trying their heart out, but Naseem obviously is a big loss."
In the final reckoning, Pakistan's comeback in the field and also the chase until fairly deep into the game should give some solace. This was- as Mir dropped an early, pivotal, each- time dolly, as Rauf conceded 24 in his first over, as Warner took full risk of the chance, as Marsh celebrated his birthday with a hundred( he hit an Ashes hundred this summer for his family Shaun's birthday too)- shaping up to be one of those operatically bad Pakistan days. In the end it was bad in just an underwhelming kind of way.
Except a bad day at a World Cup is a bad day no matter the scale and Pakistan can not go too numerous further now.