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The Bulletin by Andrew McGlashan
November 5, 2010
A classic one-day series will have a deciding encounter after Pakistan produced another nerve-jangling run chase in Dubai to clinch a second one-wicket victory in the space of two matches with one ball to spare. Zulqarnain Haider struck the winning run after just about managing to keep his head as everyone else lost theirs, and South Africa will be left to wonder how they let another match slip away.
When Morne Morkel removed Abdul Razzaq in the 47th over, having also bagged Younis Khan for a measured 73, the game, and the series, was in South Africa's grasp with Pakistan needing 31 off 23 balls, but again their bowling and fielding couldn't cope under pressure. Graeme Smith, back leading the side after missing two matches with a hand injury, spilled a tough chance from Wahab Riaz and then Dale Steyn, who was playing his first international of the season, conceded 12 off the 48th over as two short balls were pulled past short fine-leg.
South Africa messed up a chance to run out Wahab when Johan Botha produced a wild throw from the outfield as he came back for a third, then in the penultimate over another chance was missed when Morkel hurled the ball past the stumps from his follow through and two overthrows ensued. Amid all the drama, it left Pakistan needing four off the last over but a final twist seemed almost inevitable, and duly arrived when Wahab was finally run out.
It meant Haider was on strike with three needed from three balls and he levelled the scores with a chip over midwicket as Parnell missed the chance to win the game for South Africa by failing to flick the ball into the stumps. The next delivery was short on leg and, after the manic scenes, it was a relatively calm nudge to square leg which sealed the result.
It was breathless cricket, the third game in a row that had shown how much the 50-over game still has to offer. There was proper, conventional batsmanship from Younis and Smith, innovative striking from Botha, quality fast bowling from Morkel and Shoaib Akhtar and impressive spin played out in front of a crowd that grew after the sun had gone down.
Chasing 275 was always going to be tough but this was a better surface than for the third game, which had been too slow to enable clean strokeplay. Younis, who only hit one boundary, was carrying his team into a winning position alongside Razzaq as the pair added 49 for the sixth wicket with the batting Powerplay still up their sleeve. It was the ideal combination to complete the chase - Younis' calmness alongside the brute force of Razzaq - but Morkel removed Younis via an inside edge and two balls later Abdur Rehman was run out in a hopeless mix-up.
Pakistan had been ahead, or within touching distance, of the asking rate throughout the chase but South Africa had kept chipping away. What made the final disintegration of their fielding so surprising was that it was shaping as the difference between the teams. Younis and Asad Shafiq added 56 for the third wicket before Shafiq was run out by a direct hit from mid-on by Wayne Parnell, then Shahid Afridi - who took three boundaries in an over off Steyn to kick-start the innings - was brilliantly caught at long-off by Parnell as he tried to launch Botha into the stands.
Imran Farhat had fallen in the first over, trapped lbw from around the wicket by Morkel, but Mohammad Hafeez set a positive tone and latched onto the extra pace of Steyn, who returned after a lengthy absence. It was fascinating viewing as Steyn worked through the gears and Hafeez was winning the early battles with a string of boundaries.
Steyn had his revenge when Hafeez tried to whip a straight delivery through the leg side and was comfortably leg before. Ultimately, though, his 10 overs cost 79 runs, the second most expensive analysis of his career, and questions will again be asked about how South Africa bowled in the closing overs, especially as Rusty Theron, who kept his nerve in the previous match, was left out.
Smith had a far more productive return to action although his lay-off had only been two games after taking a blow on his hand in the opening encounter in Abu Dhabi. He was soon back in the grove and eased to a 57-ball half-century, adding 94 for the third wicket with de Villiers, who laboured against Pakistan's spinners in a boundary-less 70-ball innings.
Smith missed out on a hundred when he tried to work Hafeez through the leg side, and for a while South Africa lost momentum as Wahab put himself on a hat trick by yorking JP Duminy and David Miller. Botha responded with a string of clever boundaries, including two reverse sweeps off Hafeez and a brace of scoops over short fine-leg against Wahab. The impetus was back in South Africa's camp, but it's been impossible to predict the outcome in this series and this was to be another thriller to the end.
There are match-winning centuries and there are Match-winning Centuries. You will travel far and wide, maybe even go back in time, but you will struggle to find a more remarkable game-stealing hundred than the one the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi saw tonight. An outrageous 72-ball 109 from Abdul Razzaq dragged Pakistan to a series-levelling target of 287 against South Africa, one ball and one wicket left.
It was scarcely-scriptable and only when Razzaq hit his tenth six in the last over, slogging Albie Morkel over midwicket to climax an unimaginable orgy of power-hitting, was a Pakistan win even worth contemplating; until then he had played to a backdrop of impending, imminent doom. To even get to that point needing 14 was a feat because for 99 overs Pakistan looked a distant second best; a solid, now-to-be-forgotten century from Colin Ingram, hands from Hashim Amla and JP Duminy and the continuing refusal of Pakistan's top order to turn up, the distinct story till then.
Shahid Afridi and Fawad Alam had tried gamely to make something of the disaster of 70 for 4 in the 19th over. The spinners were on, Afridi was around so inevitably some fun was had. When Afridi went in the 30th, the score at 136, still the best they could hope for was an honourable scrap.
Razzaq began quietly, expressive as a stone, and even a dance-down six off Robin Peterson four overs after Afridi left felt decorative. Alam, meanwhile, was getting bogged down by his own inability to clear a field. But South Africa relaxed, the pair stuck at it. Alam suddenly got going and Razzaq smoked a couple more sixes. By the 40th over, at 200 for 5, theoretically it looked possible - in this age of Twenty20 at least - even if, in reality, it didn't feel gettable.
But for once, Pakistan timed their Powerplay right and when Johan Botha was taken for 11 in the very first, a little tension crept in. Only a little though, for Alam went soon, Morne Morkel bowled two fine overs, there was the inevitable run-out and even though Razzaq had reached his fifty, it was done and dusted.
The 47th over, bowled poorly by Charles Langeveldt, was pivotal. Razzaq launched a sequence of length balls for three sixes in his favourite areas - flat-batted over extra cover, high over long-on and down the ground. Eighteen runs but no expression. Wahab Riaz's run-out off the last ball was merely collateral damage as 53 from 24 became 33 from 18.
Razzaq had decided at the fall of Alam that if the match was to be won, it would be by him alone, so with the tail in, several singles were turned down. With 25 needed from 12, Langeveldt was lofted down the ground and then pulled with cartoonish violence to midwicket. By the time Razzaq had taken the 14 needed off the last over he had scored 63 of the last 65, effectively from the 45th over onwards. Six sixes came in the last four overs, and only at the very end, after crashing a drive through point, did he let his emotions out, dropping his bat and trying to run but not knowing where to go.
That put to shade all that went before it. South Africa's real work had been done with the bat and Ingram's second ODI century was a real old-school effort. The start was edgy, even if it contained a classy punch through midwicket. But once he jumped down the track and lofted Razzaq down the ground, nerves were shed.
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Thereafter, singles and doubles rolled by and so incongruously did he go about it that his fifty, at the halfway mark, was actually a surprise. He never fully got hold of the spinners but neither did they really trouble him and a pattern emerged. There was a missed stumping, but a ball previous, he had driven solidly through covers. Five times an edge was drawn and each time a boundary was the result. He might even have been run out on 73, but so settled was he that a century never looked in serious doubt. Every time the spinners erred, he took advantage, cutting and pulling efficiently. The running was the highlight, aggressive throughout.
But it was Amla who had set the tone and allowed Ingram such comfort. His ODI batting has been a revelation since his late debut in 2008; he now has nine fifties and five hundreds in just 34 games. At a 90-plus strike rate, they don't come slowly either. But most revelatory is the persistent quality of his stokeplay, unique and utterly compelling. So quick are the hands and wrists that the feet don't need to move.
He began with a burst of boundaries, four in the first two overs, rotating his bat like a wand for flicks and cuts through point. More cuts, whips and a rare drive through the off kept coming so that even when singles dried up, the runs didn't. A fifty, off just 47 balls, was merely statistical embellishment to a wondrous hour of batting, especially on a surface slow enough to hamper timing. He is not the modern macho ODI opener, and it cannot be disputed the format needs such flair over brutality and function.
Across the desert in Dubai, as Botha was winning the toss, Mohammad Amir's suspension was not being lifted and how his absence was felt by Pakistan. In turn, they were awful, complacent, solid and special. Shoaib Akhtar and Razzaq are a different proposition altogether than Amir and Mohammad Asif, as their opening spells - short, wide and inconsistent - proved.
There came brief spells of tight work, from the spinners, but never prolonged. The best they saved for last and it came from the impressive Wahab Riaz. Just when South Africa were looking to explode in the batting Powerplay, yorkers, short balls and cutters ensured only 25 runs came, Riaz picking up two of the three wickets to fall.
It felt a relative victory then, a twinkling cameo from Duminy highlighting its hollowness. A potential target of 300-plus became 287; Pakistan's best chase against these opponents was 223 and they had only chased down 250-plus twice in the last two years. And they certainly hadn't chased them down like they finally did here.
