so..

[Beleg]

was it a choke or did pakistan totally outplay south africa?

[zaremba]

They were choked by Umer Gul and Shahid Afridi.

[shankar]

I think there was bit of a choke when the spinners came on, but they recovered and played as well as they could have from thereon.

[Naumaan]

Pakistan played well & big match pressure on South Africa, wasn't a choke honestly, you would feel for South Africa

[Sanz]

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.

[rivera213]

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.

[silentstriker]

Choking would be if they were on their way to win and then collapsed (either bowling or batting). Not the case here.

[Noble One]

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.

[pasag]

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.

[BoyBrumby]

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.

Disagree. SA were favourites at least twice. Restricting Pakistan to 149/4 after they'd been 120/3 after 15 put them in the box seat and they were 39/0 after 5 themselves, comfortably up with the asking rate.

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?

[shivfan]

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.

[Athlai]

[alternative]

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.

[BoyBrumby]

Daily Mirror in no doubt. Check that first paragraph:



Although you'll also see Fat Gray couldn't even get that right...

[Athlai]

Smith: "Every time we lose an important game, that word, chokers, is thrown around,"

Because you LOSE IMPORTANT GAMES YA DINGUS.