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#5 (permalink) |
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Hall of Fame Member
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: USA
Posts: 16,228
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Pakistan Outplayed South Africa. Younis Khan made good decisions starting from winning the Toss and electing to bat, sending in Afridi @ 3 and Saving Umar Gul for the crunch time. With a little luck his decisions and the risks he took paid off.
It is not a choke, SA were never in a winning position in this match. |
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#6 (permalink) |
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U19 Vice-Captain
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: London
Posts: 503
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I can't take anything away from Pakistan.
To be fair, whenever they've needed to win a match they've played well. Big kudos to Gul. The man has nerves of steel and Amir for a 17 year old has impressed me. He's already bowling mid to late 80's and hasn't completely grown. Look at what happened to Broad in the last few months in regard to pace. Promising talent, Wasim needs to grab hold of him and become his mentor.
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#7 (permalink) | |
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The Wheel is Forever
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: USA
Posts: 36,546
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Choking would be if they were on their way to win and then collapsed (either bowling or batting). Not the case here.
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Quote:
-My beliefs summarized in words much more eloquent than I could come up with How the Universe came from nothing |
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#8 (permalink) |
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International Vice-Captain
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Australia
Posts: 4,112
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Outplayed by Pakistan? Yes. Choke? No.
If the South African players simply bowled full-tosses all innings, and then batted without any application; then they would have choked. As it turned out, South Africa bowled well, batted with a target in mind; and just ended up falling short of a team that had a couple of starring individual performances. |
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#9 (permalink) |
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RTDAS
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Looking for milksteak
Posts: 31,679
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Of course it was a choke. It was a MASSIVE choke. They had what most described by most as the best team on paper and they couldn't even make it to the finals. That's the definition of a quality choke.
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Rest In Peace Craigos
2003-2012 |
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#10 (permalink) | |
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Englishman
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Doing the stance
Posts: 42,651
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Quote:
Also, Younus only allowing Gul 3 overs was a howler IMHO. He got away with it, but to leave the star seamer from the entire tournament an over shy was a boo-boo, surely?
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- As featured in The Independent. "This is not the time for namby-pamby promising youngsters who might just do something; not the time for building for the future. Pragmatism rules and they don't come more pragmatic than Rogers." - Victor Marks makes the case for stiff-legged and stiff-armed 35 year old left-handers in Ashes squads |
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#11 (permalink) |
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Banned
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: England
Posts: 2,823
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It's a mixture of both....
The Saffer bowling has been great throughout the tournament. However, the batting has not been impressive, despite the list of stellar names. In six matches, they only passed 150 twice. That's just not good enough.... The bowling is what carried them so far. However, Afridi took them on, and when the Saffers were set 150 to win, predictably, they couldn't chase it down. The Saffers need to take a long, hard look at their batting line-up for this format. |
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#13 (permalink) |
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Cricket Web Content Updater
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Sydney, Australia
Posts: 11,077
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Definitely a Choke. The best team on paper by miles and they outplayed a lot of quality opposition and come finals, they are back to their routine.
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