Pakistan Information & News

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An unbelievable catch by Shane Bond in his follow-through. He is a bit special.

See here if you can’t view it above.

Original post by Will and software by Elliott

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Ah - I’m back from sunny San Francisco. It was a welcome break away from the bitter cold. Though, upon my return, I learned that the weather this past weekend at home was actually pretty warm. Balls! Such is my luck.
What you missedFans and haters of omarlovescricket must visit the Bay area at some point. There is no cricket there, unfortunately, but there are plenty of wineries, even more wineries, spectacular views and great food! It’s a beautiful city. Very picturesque.
Cricket stuff I missedUpon my return, I was excited to learn that Australia have been white-washed in New Zealand. Well that’s spectacular news! Always refreshing to see the great Aussies getting whipped. Naturally, Gilchrist followed up their embarrassing series loss with the expected, “We didn’t really want to tour New Zealand in the first place” argument. Well, Mr. Gilchrist, boo fucking hoo!
Mathew Hayden smashed 181 runs! Bloody hell. King can’t [...]

Original post by omar and plugin by Elliott Back

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“World Cup  plans on  track: Buchanan”
Ye gods, if this is a plan…
To be fair though, Buchanan never actually is quoted as saying that. It is another case of sub-editors licence. However, if Australia don’t have a markedly improved performance against New Zealand tomorrow in Auckland, the howls coming out of Australia will grow ever more shrill.
Mind you I am confident that things will turn around in time for the World Cup. There’s a lot of water to flow under the bridge yet.

Original post by Scott and a wordpress plugin by Elliott

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The scoreboard tells the story.
It must be twenty years since I’ve seen such a poor performance by an Australian side; they were second best for the entire game. This was a woeful display, lacking in any of the traditional Australian virtues of discipline, enterprise and initative.
There’s no doubt that New Zealand played very well, and they would have won against better sides then this. Shane Bond was an absolute menace, and the wicket was difficult for the batsmen. New Zealand’s openers had a lot of play and miss in the first half of their innings. But once they were settled, Fleming and Vincent had no trouble picking off the runs.
There was one particular standout moment of the day, which was Bond’s caught and bowled off Cameron White. One of the best catches I’ve ever seen.
The only thing that went wrong for New Zealand was Jacob Oram, who broke his finger [...]

Original post by Scott and a wordpress plugin by Elliott

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Ye gods, the news keeps getting worse.
While New Zealand will field their first choices during the three games, Australia have left their captain and vice-captain at home and Andrew Symonds is recovering from a serious arm injury.
Adding to the visitors’ lack of power is a Brett Lee ankle injury and a hip problem to Michael Clarke, who is second-in-charge after Ricky Ponting decided to have treatment on his back and Adam Gilchrist rested. The changes mean Australia have picked a raw squad, including Adam Voges, Cameron White, Brad Haddin and the on-standby Phil Jaques, and the competition that has been wedged into a crammed itinerary has become an inconvenience, even though they were upended in the CB Series finals.
If Clarke is ruled out, Matthew Hayden will be the only one of Australia’s top four who is batting in his usual position while Brad Hodge, the No. 5, is keeping Symonds’ [...]

Original post by Scott and powered by Img Fly

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So, for one of the two sides, it is judgement day, and not a moment too soon. The Australian triangular series drags on forever, and it gets rather stale by the end, don’t you agree?
I’m going to hope that England win, not for the reason that I think Australia can beat them, but rather because if Australia play New Zealand in the finals, we could have a situation where Australia play New Zealand six times in two weeks (for the two sides meet in New Zealand for the Chappell Hadlee trophy straight after this).
New Zealand is a great team, and I’m sure New Zealanders are a swell bunch of people, but six times in two weeks is too much.
One a totally different topic, did you see that South Africa piled on 392 against Pakistan in an ODI game? What’s notable about that is that it isn’t even in the top [...]

Original post by Scott and powered by Img Fly

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Australia’s utter dominance down under in this Commonwealth Bank series against New Zealand and England made this series quite boring to follow. Though its good to see England finally beating Australia. No doubt, this victory will do them a world of good. I glanced at the points table and both New Zealand and Eng are tied with 9 points apiece. They both have a chance of making it to the final.
The batting finally came together, with Joyce providing the anchor and everyone batting around him. Its tough to score a century anyway, and for his maiden century to be against Australia in such trying times is an even bigger deal.
I’m also pleased to see Australia getting whipped in this game. Arguably, their loss shows their over-reliance on their skipper, Ricky Ponting, who was rested for this game. Now wouldn’t it be amusing if England make it to the final and [...]

Original post by omar and powered by Img Fly

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The team is as low as Michael Vaughan has seen them. Meanwhile, as I write, New Zealand are making a good fist of chasing down 344, and even if they do not get there, New Zealand will take some heart from how well they are batting.
I do not think that England do themselves any favours by making it so plain that they do not like one-day cricket. Australia do not particularly like it either, but they really do like winning, and the best way to win is to keep winning. It becomes a habit.
I will take the positive view and say that England did have a plan entering the Commonwealth Bank Series, but either it was blown out of the water by Kevin Pieterson’s injury, or it has simply been blown off course by their total lack of confidence. Certainly there’s not been any backup plans.
Given England’s total disarray, they [...]

Original post by Scott and a wordpress plugin by Elliott

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So I wandered along to the Adelaide Oval yesterday after all, and took up my seat in the Chappell Stands with New Zealand struggling at 3 for 60 after about 20 overs. England were right on top, and as I’d found myself next to a rather chatty fellow, we discussed the match, and also the possibility that we’d be going home early. As it was, we DID end up going home early, but that was because New Zealand had won the game.
How did they escape? Well, Jacob Oram batted well. England made it easy though for him, because he came out to bat and was facing the fire and brimstone of Paul Collingwood. My own view that Flintoff should have brought Anderson back into the attack eventually filtered through to the England captain four overs after I had said it, by which time Oram had settled in.
He’s a big lad, [...]

Original post by Scott and a wordpress plugin by Elliott

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The New Zealanders are bringing back Jacob Oram and Kyle Mills. But Shane Bond isn’t yet fit. With the greatest respect to Oram and Mills, I’m not shelling out money to watch them.
Anyway, chat away yonder, my merry readers. An England victory here would be a great leap forward towards them making the finals.
UPDATE - Oh, Bond’s been included. New Zealand are batting first, so I might wander along after all.

Original post by Scott and plugin by Elliott Back

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I had to await today’s highlights of yesterday’s Australia vs New Zealand fixture due to the fact that I did a ’spur of the moment’ trek into the Australian interior. Drought-breaking rains have flooded the mid-north of South Australia, and that looked more exciting to me then another hum-drum one-dayer between Australia and New Zealand. In any event, I could listen to it on the radio.
An unusual green strip in the SCG pitch gave fast bowlers the edge, and Australia’s pace attack made short work of the New Zealand top order, before Craig McMillan launched a brave revival, after he demonstrated that he’s no more likely to walk then Michael Hussey. Umpires Simon Taufell and Asad Rauf will hope this game is forgotten as quickly as possible because they both had bad games. New Zealand ended up with 218.
And they reduced Australia to 3 for 17 before Michael Clarke stabilised [...]

Original post by Scott and software by Elliott

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