While India was being taught a cricket lesson by Bangladesh, another underdog was pulling down a listless giant. Bangladesh and Ireland should not be compared. Bangladesh is a much better team and has more international experience. What Ireland did today was amazing. They pulled off an upset win over Pakistan. Pakistan's batting was abysmal and their bowling except for Sami was not very good either. When a team has to defend a total of 132 they can't afford to bowl 11 wides. That is just unacceptable.
This has happened time and again. Pakistan and India have a terrible time batting on seamer friendly wickets. Whether this is due to an inherent weakness in batting technique or a mental stumbling block is not relevant. To be eligible for being called the best team in the world, any cricket team has to succeed in all sorts of conditions. Pakistan and India cannot.
On a seamer friendly wicket, Pakistan gifted its wickets hand over fist. Having seen the dismissals, there were very few balls which warranted wickets. Most of the wickets that fell were due to loose shots and brilliant fielding/catching. The Pakistani batsmen have no one but themselves to blame.
A lot of changes are imminent for the Pakistani team. It was unfortunate to see a great batsman like Inzi slink off the field in such a way. Bob Woolmer has been under as much (probably more) fire as his sub-continent counterpart, Greg Chappell, mostly because it is easier to shift blame onto a foreign coach for a team's failings. Whatever the case might be, Bob Woolmer will be gone (especially since his contract expires soon). We are looking forward to the book Bob Woolmer will write in the near future. Rana Naved and Imran Nazir are two other players who might have to start looking at other opportunities.
The Irish fielding was fantastic as was the Bangladeshi fielding. If we may digress, Cricket has become an athletes game (yes, we figured it out by ourselves). It is not enough if one is a talented batsman or a talented bowler. One has to be a good fielder too. Like everything else there are exceptions to that rule. If one is as talented as Glen McGrath, they can be given a pass but even Glen McGrath is a very safe catcher and an adequate fielder. There can be no room for a Munaf Patel. Players from Pakistan and India (this is not a subcontinent trait because both Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are excellent fielding sides) have to improve their fielding to have any hope of being the best team in the world.
Couple of things before we sign off:
The much advertised April 8th Super 8 match between India and Pakistan might be played by Bangladesh and Ireland.
We feel very bad that Inzi had to exit the world cup stage this way.
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