Mumbai: Pakistan had a score to settle with the USA after their shock defeat had seen them suffer an early exit from the 2024 T20 World Cup and they did that by prominently using spin as a force at the Sinhalese Sports Club Ground under lights on Tuesday.
By loading their team with spinners, perhaps they sent a message to their upcoming opponents about how the land of fast bowlers plans to approach this competition differently.
Pakistan will play all their matches on the relatively slower pitches in Sri Lanka.
With an assortment of slow bowlers—from Abrar Ahmed’s mystery spin to Shadab Khan’s conventional leg-spin, Mohammed Nawaz’s finger spin, Saim Ayub’s assortment and Usman Tariq’s right-arm-everything—they completely chained down the USA batters. The USA never came close to chasing down the 191-run target and fell short by 32 runs.
Pakistani spinners were especially effective in the middle overs. Like Azam for Pakistan, Monank Patel could not get the ball away for USA. Unlike Azam, the USA captain could not make up for it and got out. His 10-ball stay for 3 stalled the batting innings after which they could never break free. At the halfway stage, the USA, at 68/2, were well behind the asking rate.
Impressive with the bat, Shadab was equally good with the ball. The leg-spinner extracted enough grip off the surface, which made his googly all the more effective as a sucker ball. He finished with 4-0-26-2. But Tariq’s 3 wickets with his unorthodox action got people talking more.
After a modest start in the Powerplay (50/1), the USA accumulated only 48/2 between overs 7-14. That is where the match was lost.
Earlier, USA bowlers began brightly led by Shadley van Schalkwyk who has made a habit of picking wickets in a cluster. When he runs in to bowl the last over of the Powerplay, you can call it a bad omen for the batters.
Schalkwyk had picked up three wickets in the 6th over against India. The South African-born medium pacer repeated the dose against Pakistan by using his smart mix-ups to get rid of Saim Ayub and Salman Agha. Against India, the sharp Ali Khan had set the tone.
Here, Schalkwyk led the way by squeezing Pakistan’s run flow in the best fashion possible – through wickets. Another good show with figures of 4-0-25-4 strengthened Schalkwyk’s growing reputation as a canny operator with a happy knack of picking wickets.
At 56/2 it was still a good Powerplay for Pakistan. Certainly much better than their returns at Dallas two years ago, a memory they were out to erase.
Spotlight on Babar Azam
Babar Azam came out after the Powerplay and batted through the middle overs. For a greater part of his stay, he dealt in ones and twos. Scoring 15 off the first 18 balls he faced, Azam frustrated his legion of fans and the change room, although the coaches wouldn’t show it. Until left-arm spinner Harmeet Singh missed his lengths in an entire over to which Azam kept rocking on the back foot and brought out the pull to make amends. 21 runs came from the 13th over, 17 of them from Azam’s blade. And he was away.
The scoreboard wouldn’t accurately tell you if Azam’s 32-ball 46 was a poor innings. There were moments in the middle overs when Azam’s conservative play pushed the free flowing Sahibzada Farhan to take the extra risk. There wasn’t enough depth in the USA pace attack to challenge the Pakistan opener, but the story could be different come Sunday against India. Azam, the anchor, his batting number and his approach will remain a talking point and central to how Pakistan wants to play its T20 cricket.
Farhan’s commanding innings of 73 (41b, 6×4, 5×6) and Shadab Khan’s cameo of 30 (12b, 4×4, 6×1) allowed Pakistan to post 190.
