Quote:
Originally Posted by GingerFurball
Umar Akmal was under pressure to really make the most of the strike he got because Misbah decided that he was batting for lunch at the other end.
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Well here's how I recall Umar's brief innings unfolding:
When he came on, Misbah himself had been in for just a few delivers (1 run off 3 balls, looking it up). Half way through Umar Akmal's innings, they were:
Misbah-ul-Haq 7* (12b)
Umar Akmal 18* (17b 1x4 1x6)
and at one end Nehra & Munaf were clamping down both batsmen (yes, Umar too played a few dot balls in a row and never got more than a single against those two). and at the other end Yuvraj was bowling mostly to Umar, who was taking him to the cleaners - 21 runs in 2 overs. Of course Yuvi was replaced by Harbhajan, who completely beat Umar first ball - not getting out to a slog or a risky shot, just didnt have a clue what Harbhajan had just bowled (a faster arm ball). Oh yeah, there were drinks right before Harbhajan came to bowl too...
Then Razzaq & Afridi too were not able to score against the seamers (Zaheer was brought on for Afridi). Yeah statistics don't tell the story - NOBODY in the Pakistani line up was scoring against the seamers (Nehra, then Patel, then Zaheer) in that passage of play from Umar Akmal coming in and Afridi getting out in which 3 wickets were lost and which basically turned the match from being in balance to decided.
Against the spinners, in that same period Misbah was 15 runs from 19 balls.In those 7 overs from Nehra+Patel+Zaheer there were no boundaries and only one ball went for 2 runs and those overs went for 19 runs total.