Outsiders can expose Pakistan frailties (16 June 1999)

16 June 1999

Outsiders can expose Pakistan frailties

Michael Henderson

Quietly, stealthily, New Zealand have crept into the semi-finals of the World Cup. That won't worry them a bit. They are used to being under-rated, and sometimes patronised, but it lies within their power to surprise everybody when they meet Pakistan at Old Trafford today. Beating Australia in the first round was a minor squib in the spring air; reaching the final would be like firing a rocket to the moon.

Don't imagine they are not capable of getting to Lord's. People have assumed, since the start of the tournament, that the final would throw together two of three teams: Pakistan, Australia and South Africa.

The favourites play at Edgbaston tomorrow, all appetites whetted by the bone-jarring encounter at Headingley last Sunday, and the general view is that Pakistan will be in London by then, awaiting the victors.

But Wasim Akram knows, and one trusts his players do, that this is just the kind of game Pakistan can lose. For all their riches of talent, they are not infallible. Bangladesh undermined them in the last game of the first round, and they then lost twice more, batting first against South Africa, and chasing runs against India.

So when Wasim said his players "were feeling relaxed and going to go out to enjoy our cricket", he was saying no more than what was expected of him.

Pakistan have played the most attractive cricket of any side in this tournament, and would be popular winners, but they are frail. Today, more than any day so far, they cannot afford to be.

Their opponents may feel it is high time they appeared in a World Cup final. Three times, in 1975, 1979 and 1992, they have lost semi-finals, to West Indies, England and Pakistan.

The most recent of those defeats came on home soil, in Auckland, when they proved powerless to prevent the Pakistanis overtaking their score of 262 for seven, due in no small part to Inzamam-ul-Haq making 60 of them from 37 balls.

They were also disappointed in the last World Cup, when a total of 286 for nine in a quarter-final in Madras was insufficient to overcome Australia, who bettered it with six wickets and two overs in hand. Chris Harris, one of seven members of that side to play in this tournament, made 130 that day, his only World Cup hundred.

The current side are not distinguished by players of the high talent of Richard Hadlee, Martin Crowe and Glenn Turner. Give them credit, therefore, for playing above expectations, if not their own, then those of others.

Having been deprived by rain of the chance to take two points from the game against Zimbabwe, they made sure of a semi-final place by beating India handsomely at Trent Bridge.

Roger Twose, whose half centuries helped win that match, and the one against Australia, may be held up as an example of how thickly this team spread their talent.

Had Twose stayed in England with Warwickshire it is unlikely he would have earned favour as an international cricketer, either in Tests or in one-dayers. Yet here he is, a member of a side who have outlasted England in successive World Cups.

Twose has enjoyed a productive competition. Others have not shone as brightly as they hoped. Steve Rixon, the Australian who coaches New Zealand, said yesterday that Stephen Fleming, Nathan Astle and Craig McMillan, the players they rely on, had banked too few runs in the team's account.

Their best chance of winning today is surely to bat first on the pitch used last week for Pakistan's game against India, and hope that the underachieving batsmen strike some sparks. Rixon expected the pitch to be slow, variable in bounce, and for the ball to 'hold up'. A score of 250, he thought, would be competitive.

Pakistan are again without Yousuf Youhana, their talented strokemaker in the middle order, so Wajahatullah Wasti should retain his place at the top of the order, with Shahid Afridi batting at No 6.

Fresh in everybody's mind is the way Pakistan chased a gettable target against India, and lost by 47 runs. They are a different side altogether when they are chasing. They prefer their marvellous bowlers to protect scores.

The bowler of the tournament, though, plays for the other side. Geoff Allott is no Wasim Akram but the left-arm paceman has taken 20 wickets, a competition record, and, as the saying goes, he has power to add. New Zealand will not be shaken off easily. They believe strongly they can win this game.

New Zealand: M Horne, N Astle, C McMillan, *S Fleming, R Twose, C Cairns, -A Parore, C Harris, G Larsen, D Nash, G Allott.

Pakistan (probable): S Anwar, W Wasti, I Ahmed, Inzamam-ul-Haq, S Afridi, -M Khan, A Mahmood, A Razzaq, *W Akram, S Mushtaq, S Akhtar.

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph