The coach of the Pakistan cricket team, and former pace bowler, Waqar Younis has said that he was still shocked at the way his side lost the semi-finals of
the World T20 to Australia despite being in the position of great strength.
Australia needed 48 runs off 17 balls and 18 off the last over bowled by Saeed
Ajmal and still lost the game thanks to an innings to remember from Michael Hussey. Hussey smashed a 24-ball 60, including three sixes in the last over
off Ajmal to win the game for his side.
Australia needed to get to 192 were almost down in the dumps when they were
105 for 5 in the 13th over. This meant that Cameron White and Hussey
needed to come up with a miracle to have any chances to win the game and that
is exactly what had happened.
Waqar Younis said, "All you can do is just smile about it. I thought we
did our best. What else can you do? I don't think we went wrong anywhere. We
did a good job, but you've just got to give credit to the Australians for the
way they batted. They kept the momentum with them all the way, especially Cameron
White's innings."
Waqar also credited White's knock as the one that set the momentum for Australia,
after, it looked like at one stage they were going to go down rather easily.
Waqar also refused to blame anyone, and said that the side bowled well enough
but came up against a side which was far superior than them.
This meant that the defending champions and the most consistent team of this
format - having reached all the semi-finals so far - Pakistan, was knocked out
of the tournament, and Australia will play England in the final for the title
clash. England had earlier beaten Sri Lanka in the first semi-final of
the tournament to get to their first ever final of an ICC event since 2004.
Talking of the final, the coach of Pakistan also tipped Australia as the favourites
to win the game. he said, "England are on top of their form. It's just
a matter of holding your nerves in the final. But the way Australia played
today, they are very dangerous."
"When you have such momentum with you it's always handy. They played like
champions. They haven't won the Twenty20 yet, but this is their opportunity
- and I think they're going to come really hard at the English team.
|