Misbah-ul-Haq fails to do a ‘Dhoni’ as Pakistan falls short by 20

Pakistan slipped to their second successive loss to England in the second ODI of the four-match series in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, February 15. Having been embarrassed by 130 runs in the first ODI, Pakistan needed to win in order to leave themselves with
any chance of clinching the ODI series like the test series. However, the Green Shirts failed to live up to the expectations and lost by 20 runs to go down 2-0 after as many games. England captain, Alistair Cook, was once again given the Man of the Match award
for his second successive century of the series. How the action unfolded at Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Zayed Stadium is described below.

Cook once again won the toss and decided to bat on a slow and turning track. England remain unchanged unlike Pakistan, who bought in Azhar Ali, Abdul Rehman and Aizaz Cheema in place of Asad Shafique, Shoaib Malik and Wahab Riaz respectively. Cook and Kevin
Pietersen once again provided a fifty plus opening stand before Saeed Ajmal trapped Pietersen LBW for 26.

Jonathan Trott and Cook steadied the ship and added 49 runs for the second wicket before Cheema got rid of Trott for 23. In the mean time, Cook bought up his second century of the series before playing straight into the hands of Shahid Afridi of his own
bowling. He made 102. Ravi Bopara once again launched a well compiled 50 before looping a catch into the hands of Umar Akmal of Cheema. England finished with 250/4 in their allotted 50 overs with Afridi and Rehman being the two most economical bowlers for
the Green Shirts. Cheema picked up two wickets, while Ajmal and Afridi picked up a wicket each.

Pakistan made a relatively better start compared to the first ODI with Mohammad Hafeez and Imran Farhat adding 61 for the first wicket before Hafeez looped a catch to Trott of James Anderson. Azhar Ali and Farhat added 31 for the second wicket before Farhat
was unfortunately run out for 47 after playing so well at top of the order. Younis Khan once again failed to steady his team’s ship and was caught LBW of Samit Patel for 5. Misbah-ul-Haq and Azhar added lovely 38 runs for the fourth wicket before Ali missed
a straighter one from Patel and lost his off stump for an excellent 31.

Umar Akmal made breezy 21 before finding Patel at extra cover. Afridi made a run a ball 18 before Anderson shattered his and Pakistan’s dreams with the score at 207/6. Pakistan’s last hope, Misbah, was the lone man standing but he couldn’t emulate, what
Mahinder Singh Dhoni did it for India two days back against Srilanka.

As a result, Pakistan went on to lose the game by 20 runs and now are left with an uphill task of winning the next two ODI’s and level the series.

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Posted by Taha Habib on Feb 16 2012. Filed under Pakistan, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry