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Pakistan is the kind of team whose middle name is unpredictability. No one knows what Pakistan may or may not do on a cricket field. You never know. We’ve heard such statements perhaps more often than the number of times a Michael Jackson song has been played around us.
Pakistan are to cricket what sunshine is on a bitingly cold day of winter. Unexpected is an understatement. Just that the sunshine may just make way for a spell of shower, pretty much out of nowhere.
They’re that unpredictable. And yet, Pakistan are also that enigmatic. Watching a game of Pakistan in any format is like watching a romantic saga that turns into a thriller. It’s like planning for a year for a trip to a breezy beachy destination only to land in the middle of a desert paradise.
In the end, you’re happy. No, startled. However, that can’t be said for everyone. Like for instance, the flip side of ‘happy’ Pakistan could be a dampener to their opponents. Take Sri Lanka in this case, who found out on a rather forgettable Hyderbad night on October 10; a day they’d much rather forget.
The team that Sri Lanka first whipped scoring, perhaps rather unexpectedly, a massive 345, whipped back Sri Lanka, only just harder. In so doing, Pakistan scripted history in chasing down - what has now become- the highest total ever achieved in a fifty-over World Cup contest.
It wasn’t just about the scores that Rizwan and Shafiq managed, and they made 113 and 131* respectively, it’s the manner in which the duo went about scoring their hundreds. Rizwan, the more experienced campaigner came alongside Shafiq, who lest be forgotten, was playing just his fifth-ever one-dayer.
The classic case of a beginner blooming alongside a blossoming bloke. Together, the opening batsman and the number#4 of Pakistan struck 18 fours and 6 sixes. In so doing, they first revived a scoreboard that was actually going nowhere, held their nerves, dug a well of concentration at the Hyderabad ground, and buried Sri Lanka underneath.
Unless it is forgotten, the Pakistan scoreboard read 37-for-2 with Sri Lanka on top. With another 308 required and Babar back in the dugout, could things have gotten any worse for Pakistan? But then that’s when the sun shone brightly cutting through a biting cold day of winter only for it to rain.
And it did rain runs at Hyderabad in a contest that now may not be forgotten for times to come. Rightly so, right? A team often weighing too heavily on Babar Azam, in the end, didn’t need their most enigmatic batsman to do the unthinkable. If that’s not Pakistan in its truest essence, then what is?
Full credit to Sri Lanka for making a game out of it by putting on the big runs they so desperately needed after they were clobbered at Delhi in their first game against the Proteas. Credit to where it’s due; Kusal Mendis’s 122 remains his highest individual ODI score. It would turn out to be one of the finest hundreds by a Sri Lankan, one that included 14 boundaries and 6 sixes.
Meanwhile, Samarawickrama contributed a brilliant 108 off just 89 deliveries, a first century for him in one-day international cricket. And what a time to do it? And that wasn’t all; there was the usually quiet and capable Nissanka with a fluent fifty up the order. Yet, it wasn’t going to be enough.
In what was an ostentatious takedown of Sri Lanka, Rizwan, and Shafique have hit hundreds that’ll long inspire fans back home and rising young batsmen from around the world.
Tails of their valour will be recounted and this exceptional run chase, a typical once-in-a-lifetime World Cup game will be cited whenever someone gives an example of what it means to never quit in the game. Not even when the best batsman in a team, who happens to be its captain departs early!
Ireland did magic back in 2011 when they beat England to chase down 328, the highest-ever run chase in a World Cup contest. Although, it’s a record that’s now been bested by a team that deserves to be considered among the best.
To the rest of the world, they had everyone stunned. To many others, understanding their capabilities and cricket is more challenging than sitting blindfolded on a daunting Merry-go-round. But truth be told, there’s no one as there can be only one Pakistan.