There is no other explanation for what Afridi did with his constant chatting - which looked more like haranguing than bowling advice - to Umar Gul, his main strike bowler.
Afridi did it while Sehwag was taking the Pakistani attack to the cleaners and he did it again when Raina and the Indian tail wagged a little bit in the end.
Whatever else did the Pakistani skipper's talk did, I personally feel that it confused Umar Gul's bowling instincts enough to cost Pakistan about 15 runs. Take that 15 off the winning margin of 29, it would have been a different story. It might even have easily cost 5 additional runs, if the Indian tail mimicked its now familiar habit of 'follow the leader to the pavilion'.
It is highly questionable and ridiculous that skippers keep talking to their bowlers between every over or worse, between every delivery, as Afridi did. The bowlers and especially Umar Gul is a real top class bowler, who could walk into most Test teams of today and to assume that he doesn’t know where to bowl to a batsman or has suddenly forgotten the pre-match strategy is unbelievable.
Au contraire, such a tirade is precisely the instigation to confuse and affect the shaken-but-not-stirred bowlers confidence. Any case, with Sehwag, there is nothing much anyone can do - just cover the heads and wait for the thunderstorm to pass.
As blogged earlier, the key was the top 4 Pakistani batsmen and once they were through, the writing started to glow on the wall. Thankfully, Nehra was not his usual bowling self and showed remarkable bowling control - in fact the whole bowling effort was good - there were no extras till the 35th over, when it was broken by, who else, but Nehra.
:-P
With the absence of Ashwin, the Indian bowling did not exploit the two paced wicket. I do not think that it was a conscious effort to prepare the wicket that way. It was probably the rain on the day before the match which created some damp patches and made the wicket behave that way. Whatever, while the Pakistani bowlers, once they understood what was happening, exploited the conditions by taking the pace off the ball.
Added to it was the factor that Indian batsmen have not faced much of the Pakistani bowlers.
OTOH, the Indian bowlers came at their opponents hell for leather, bowling a little short and full of pace, which allowed the batsmen to score freely at first. Only the ball getting softer and Yuvraj thankfully bowling full at the batsmen saved the day. Once the top 4 were out of the way and the ball got even older and softer, it was always going to be a tough ask in there.
As said earlier, the cooler head prevailed. BTW one day after my post, a similar view was expressed by Sir Geoffrey Boycott in the Telegraph [http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568364/s/13bd953b/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Csport0Ccricket0Ccricket0Eworld0Ecup0C84154220CThe0ECricket0EWorld0ECup0Eemail0Ewith0EGeoffrey0EBoycott0Bhtml/story01.htm]. Seems my cricketing sense is better than ever.
0:-)
Picture courtesy : National Museums Liverpool, UK - Vintage e-cards
Afridi did it while Sehwag was taking the Pakistani attack to the cleaners and he did it again when Raina and the Indian tail wagged a little bit in the end.
Whatever else did the Pakistani skipper's talk did, I personally feel that it confused Umar Gul's bowling instincts enough to cost Pakistan about 15 runs. Take that 15 off the winning margin of 29, it would have been a different story. It might even have easily cost 5 additional runs, if the Indian tail mimicked its now familiar habit of 'follow the leader to the pavilion'.
It is highly questionable and ridiculous that skippers keep talking to their bowlers between every over or worse, between every delivery, as Afridi did. The bowlers and especially Umar Gul is a real top class bowler, who could walk into most Test teams of today and to assume that he doesn’t know where to bowl to a batsman or has suddenly forgotten the pre-match strategy is unbelievable.
Au contraire, such a tirade is precisely the instigation to confuse and affect the shaken-but-not-stirred bowlers confidence. Any case, with Sehwag, there is nothing much anyone can do - just cover the heads and wait for the thunderstorm to pass.
As blogged earlier, the key was the top 4 Pakistani batsmen and once they were through, the writing started to glow on the wall. Thankfully, Nehra was not his usual bowling self and showed remarkable bowling control - in fact the whole bowling effort was good - there were no extras till the 35th over, when it was broken by, who else, but Nehra.
:-P
With the absence of Ashwin, the Indian bowling did not exploit the two paced wicket. I do not think that it was a conscious effort to prepare the wicket that way. It was probably the rain on the day before the match which created some damp patches and made the wicket behave that way. Whatever, while the Pakistani bowlers, once they understood what was happening, exploited the conditions by taking the pace off the ball.
Added to it was the factor that Indian batsmen have not faced much of the Pakistani bowlers.
OTOH, the Indian bowlers came at their opponents hell for leather, bowling a little short and full of pace, which allowed the batsmen to score freely at first. Only the ball getting softer and Yuvraj thankfully bowling full at the batsmen saved the day. Once the top 4 were out of the way and the ball got even older and softer, it was always going to be a tough ask in there.
As said earlier, the cooler head prevailed. BTW one day after my post, a similar view was expressed by Sir Geoffrey Boycott in the Telegraph [http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568364/s/13bd953b/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Csport0Ccricket0Ccricket0Eworld0Ecup0C84154220CThe0ECricket0EWorld0ECup0Eemail0Ewith0EGeoffrey0EBoycott0Bhtml/story01.htm]. Seems my cricketing sense is better than ever.
0:-)
Picture courtesy : National Museums Liverpool, UK - Vintage e-cards
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