Pakistan v Zimbabwe

Pakistan Thrash Zimbabwe
Wednesday witnessed the last World Cup encounter for Pakistan who clashed with the lowly Zimbabwe at the beautiful Sabina Park stadium in Jamaica. Pakistan was already out of contention for the World Cup even before this match began. However, winning this match was necessary for to Pakistan for salvaging some reputation.

Match Memorial
This encounter with Zimbabwe was the last one-day appearance for the Pakistan captain and ace batsman, Inzamam ul Haq. Also, the Pakistani team was already battling against the immene trauma caused by the sudden demise of their coach, Bob Woolmer. Thus the Pakistani players were keen to win this match as a tribute to Woolmer and also bid a fitting farewell to their favorite skipper. Hence, though this match did not have any significance from the point of view of the World Cup, it still had immene significance especially for the Pakistani team.

Zimbabwe Get Lucky with the Toss
The Zimbabweans got lucky with the toss. Captain Utseya won the toss and invited Pakistan to bat first. This surprised the experts as they had expected the Zimbabweans to bat first, post a total on the board and then put pressure on the Pakistani batsmen.

Unstoppable Nazir
Pakistan did not get off to the perfect start as opener Kamran Akmal was back in the pavilion in the 7th over of the inning with the team score at 31, after making just 15 runs. However, this did not affect the other opener Imran Nazir. It seemed as if Nazir had totally different plans up his sleeve and was at his vintage best. Right from the start Nazir looked in a fine nick and dominated all the Zimbabwean bowlers. Nazir carted the Zimbabwean bowlers to all corners of the Sabina Park and scored a brilliant century, which was full of class and fine technique. Nazir was finally out in the 45th over scoring a sensational 160 runs from 121 balls. This marathon innings was studded with 14 classic hits to the fence and 8 towering sixes.

Inzy’s Final Innings
It was a historic moment, when Pakistani skipper Inzamam ul Haq came out to bat. This was his last one-day international appearance and his fans hoped that he would make it special by slamming a large score. However, the skipper was out after making 37 runs out of 35 balls with two boundaries and 3 huge sixes. He eventually fell to T Mupariwa. This was an emotional moment for Inzy who made a tearful exit from the one-day international arena. As Inzamam went up to the dressing room the Pakistani players lined up on the steps to greet him and applaud his heroics in the game. The Pakistani batting basically revolved around Imran Nazir. Pakistan made a huge total of 349 runs after losing all their wickets with only one ball to spare. This is Pakistan's highest cricket world cup score

Uphill Task for Zimbabwe
The total of 349 was always going to be extremely daunting for Zimbabwe and the pressure became too much for the Africans to handle. Reeling under this pressure, Zimbabwe got off to a disastrous start and soon slumped for 30 for 3 in 10 overs when rain stopped the play for almost three hours. For the match to be completed today, Zimbabwe had to face a minimum of 20 overs. The rain had cause Zimbabwe to loose 44.7% of their resource percentage and thus when the when the game was resumed, the revised target for Zimbabwe was 193, runs from 20 overs. at resumption, Zimbabwe was 30 for 3 wkts and 10.2 over bowled. thus they had to make anotheer 163 runs from 58 balls to win, i.e an asking rate of 16.9 runs per over--- Impossible for the Zimbabweans. However, Zimbabwe never recovered from their slump and the whole team was dismissed for mere 99 runs. There were only four batsmen from Zimbabwe who could manage double figures. The top scorer for Zimbabwe was Elton Chigumbura with 27 runs. In the 15th over bowled by Danish Kaneria, Chigumbuna hit three sixes of consecutive balls and then got clean bowled on the very first ball of the next over by Shahid Afridi. He faced a total of 11 balls, giving a strike rate of 245.45. This was an extremely embarrassing defeat for the Africans as they could not even managed to cross the 100 run mark. Shahid Afridi, who played his first World Cup match, was the highest wicket-taker for Pakistan with 3 wickets. Thus Pakistan romped to victory in their final World Cup encounter.

Nazir – Man of the Moment
It was undoubtedly Imran Nazir who was awarded the Man of the Match for his smashing innings of 160 runs. With this innings Nazir proved his caliber and talent yet again. Though Pakistan did not qualify for the Super 8, this win ensured that the team left the Caribbean on a winning note. This win would have certainly boosted the confidence of the team to some extent. The Pakistani team has been going through one of its worst patches and this win was the silver lining in the dark cloud.