... and Spinny I'll be pleased if Afridi becomes a "hitter" or at the moment even "hits a ball with his bat" (again "hit" not "nick") let alone being a "Big Hitter". 

Also I think the very presence of Chris Gayle gives immense confidence to WI team, irrespective of whether he clicks or not!

Great feeling back home, everyone's happy.  Australia thoroughly demolished on Friday, and one the greatest comebacks on Sunday.  I rate this Samuel's knock better than all the T20 centuries i've seen.

Go West Indies Go!!!

Also I think Pakistan need to look more at specialists rather than all rounders, so there is place for only Hammad or Razzaq or may be a spin all rounder. My lineups will be like below, and I'm confident pakistan will have tremendous success in future, God willling.

ODI                                              Tests

Hafeez                                     Hafeez

Kamran                                    Taufeeq

Jamshed                                  Jamshed / Younus (for now)

Azhar Ali                                  Azhar Ali

Umer Akmal                             Umer Akmal / Misbah (for now)

Asad Shafiq                             Asad Shafiq

Hammad Azam / Anwar Ali       Adnan Akmal

Gul                                           Gul

Ajmal                                        Ajmal

Junaid                                      Junaid

Raza Hasan                             Raza / Sadaf Hussain / Abdur Rahman / Mohammed Talha

Both Misbah and Younus can be part of the Test line up for now, but I'm looking at future line uo, in and I think despite the fact that the test and ODI line up will be some what similar I think there is enough talent in there to deliver the goods in both formats, also with Jamshed, Kamran, Umer Akmal and Hammad there will be fire power in the line up unlike in the past.

Overall, be it bowling, batting or whatever, I think people are reading too much into these T20 performances, the only reason this format is getting attention is because this is a world event, once sunday is done, no one will care, the focus will be entirely on Tests and ODI's and T20's will be looked upon as practice or warm up games, the only time they will get attention again is 2 years later during the next WT20.

What pleases me, and I have realized this all of a sudden today, when I think about Team Pakistan is that once the format changes they've got some exciting players to look up to who will do much better in the longer formats, Jamshed, Azhar, Asad and Umer Akmal... that is an exciting middle order!!! I'd like to see Kamran and hafeez open in ODI's while Taufeeq is there in Tests, Junaid should also be back which will be wonderful!!! Just hope for a couple of young fast bowlers to come through, unfortunately Pakistan don't have anything until December against India (if that happens) or they have Zimbabwe in January. 

  

Congratulation West Indies

W E S T = Washed the Egoist Superiority complexed Team Indies last night. Good effort. Gayle and Bravo ! Con grates.

You have get down the crown of Aussie.. This time WI needs to win the T20 WC and they are the only team having the capacity to hold the cup.. Sorry Srilanka am not against your team but WI deserves the trophy. After a long back WI team rocking.. Lets they taste the winning moment...

 

All the best for the Sunday final.

I wanted to put these points yesterday , but was waiting till Australia to lose the second semi final .... which I was certain of ... I mean Gayle storm. 

Will anyone say that Australian bowling was pathetic/toothless today to concede 200+ runs ?  I looked at some of the popular websites that said West Indies crushed Australia or our very own Cricketworld site says WI blasted Australia, but when Australia won against India it was hopeless Indian attack, how is that ? suddenly everyone talks about Gayle and his abilities ... how can anyone conveniently forget the role of conditions that played a big hand in Ind-Aus match ?  ... websites and certain authors keep saying about the catches dropped by a certain team, but will anyone point out all the good fortunes that the same team got before one rough decision ? why one rough decision is made up to be such a big issue when the same team had rub of the green going their way thought the tournament ?, were they sleeping or do they switch off their cricketing brain to mute ? ... just to point out some incidents of many good fortunes ... why did'nt anyone point it ,when certain decisions went against BD ... maybe Bangladesh lost a place in super 8 because of some bad umpiring ... maybe BD got a raw deal, isn't it?. I have seen the tournament closely and I know about all the catches dropped, run out and lucky decisions that each & every team have got.I hate it when all these are pointed out in a biased manner.

When a team like Afghanistan puts up a good fight against India (even though after all hopes were lost) , serious questions are asked ... but if the same minnow team puts up a good fight against some other test playing nations ... it is refreshing , it is good for the game ... strange double standards that.

Fans and Authors should understand that 

- every bowling team gets thrashed these days

- every team is lucky/unlucky with decision 

- every team is lucky/unlucky with conditions 

( obviously when a match presenter asks for reason for loss, I have seen some captains saying about conditions when they were tough, but mind you such captains tell it straight forward even when conditions are in their favor, nothing wrong in it ... we need some who calls ace and ace) 

- every team is lucky/unlucky with luxury of winning the toss and making best use of conditions.

- Conditions do matter in cricket , why SL bowling did not get its due credit ? Assume if Pak had won by bowling second ... would anyone say that conditions helped or , biased would say that they had best bowling attack.

- IPL connection, when Gayle and Pollard play good knocks in IPL often some domestic bowler quality is questioned ... what happened here the IPL heroes like Gayle,Watson and today Pollard did the same thing , none of the international teams could stop them ... so does it have any correlation ? 

Anyway coming back to today's match ( I would not call it thrashing , coz I know in cricket and in esp in T20 these things do happen, why T20 , even in ODI teams do have bad days ... if batsman is in zone it does not matter who the bowler is ) , Australia played superb cricket till the second last match and they lost the plot there , the time they decided to go for only 112 against Pak , they lost their confidence and momentum ... What happened in previous game continued here, but I really would not blame Australia for not going for victory in previous game, any team would do when semi final berth was in doubt.

Well played Pak and Aus to reach the semis ,but happy that WI and SL are in finals , the teams that I wanted once India was out 

very good points there mystery, the crucial one was how much they needed to score in the first 6 overs and how much difficult it is when Hafeez opens.

There was never a doubt that the pitch will become more and more difficult as the game goes on and as the ball becomes older the scoring will be even more difficult, the idea there should have been to get off to a flier, and Nazir - Kamran must have been the opening pair, the way Hafeez kills the momentum early on was a huge mistake throughout the tourney.

another minor factor was the timing of jamshed wrongly given out, he was the inform batsmen and at that stage Pakistan were slowly taking the game away from SLN, that one bad decision gave rise to two wickets pressure got to them, lost more wickets, end of the story.

Need better umpires there, better umpires!

Meanwhile both Aus and WI  have 111 points on 6th and 7th position.

It was very much a win the toss and bat first kind of a wicket, chasing anything over 125-130 here was very difficult, and against a team like Sri lanka who thrive on these conditions the task was doubly difficult, I'm sure SLN wouldn't have chased down 140 either against the same Pakistan attack.

There are a few things that must change though, one is Afridi, high time to get rid of him, a good all rounder can take his place, one is Nazir, enough of him even in the T20's, there are better players out there, Tanvir is nothing special and younger, better bowlers should get the nod.

Well played Pakistan and there are better days ahead inshallah, I'd  have loved to see RSA win but now I hope WI go on and take this title, nothing against AUS but just that WI haven't won for so long, I'd like to see them win!

So one of the deserving team went to finals, now for the Gayle storm to hit tomorrow.

EDIT: I should have stopped for a moment while posting as Afridi had come  ... 91/5 .. then 91/6

Pakistan 57/3 chasing 140 at halfway mark.Should be interesting final 10 overs.This could go anywhere!