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Proteas do down Pakistan again

As matches go, this was one both teams needed to win.

South Africa, because a win here puts them into the final and helps them stay loose and relaxed into the second half of the league phase. And Pakistan, because at the halfway stage, they needed to have two points against their name on the table.

A Pakistan win, in fact, would open up a piquant situation, with all three teams, at the halfway mark, identically placed with a win and loss apiece. And India sweating just a touch, possibly ruing the exaggerated defense late into its innings yesterday.

The odds, though, had to favour South Africa going in to this game, if only because the Proteas appear to have some kind of hex going on the Pakistan side, with 13 straight wins and counting.

Pakistan can count themselves a touch unlucky even before the first ball was bowled -- both Akram and Akthar were ruled out through injury, and that robs the team of a good part of its dentures.

South Africa lost Pollock, but with Nantie Hayward coming in, the Proteas didn't really lose much in the bowling department. Thus, you had to say it was Pollock's not playing for SA, but Hayward comes in for Polly, so SA doesn't really lose out on pace there.

Moin won the toss and despite the fact that twice in two tries, the team batting first has lost, opted for first strike on the wicket that was used for the inaugural India-SA game. You've gotta figure it was a bit of a Hobson's choice. The bowling was weakened, the batting is inexperienced and has a brittle air to it. So Moin, making the best of a bad job, figured defending was easier than risking the chase -- but for that to work, Pakistan needed a good 220, 230 at the least on the boards.

At the 30 over mark, thanks to some fine batting, Pakistan looked well on course for that kind of total what's more. Check out the progression: 13/0 in 5; 17/1 in 10; 37/1 in 15; 54/1 in 20; 77/1 in 25; 103/1 in 30; 122/1 in 35.

Admittedly slow going -- but then, the pitch wasn't exactly conducive to freeflowing strokeplay, and Pakistan at the 30 over mark had crossed the hundred mark, with some heavy hitters left in the hut to provide the acceleration. In that time, the only wicket lost was -- surprise, surprise, no real surprise -- Afridi, playing his usual thoughtless slog to the first ball of Elworthy's first over, to mishit, get it in the bottom of the bat, to give cover an easy catch.

From that point on Imran Nazir, who has got to be the brightest young talent seen in this or any team in the last year or so, and Younus Khan, who came to the limelight with a century on debut against Sri Lanka in the longer version, played with calm good sense. Nazir was particularly impressive -- completely unfazed by the pace of Hayward, willing to come into line to the quick men, blessed with good eye, dancer-light foot movements, and perfect timing, he focussed on defending, but unerringly picked the slightly loose deliveries to push the scoring. To top it all off, he's a very clean hitter, with lovely extension into his lofted shots, very quick to pick the ball to loft and hitting clean and fluid, getting a lot of distance on his long ball.

Younus at the other end was not as classical with his play, but certainly impressed with his temperament, holding his end up, chipping singles around, and helping his partner keep the board ticking, and the bowling side at bay. South Africa, for its part, stuck to its time-tested ploy of bowling the quick men in tandem, holding that line just around off, and backing the whole with razorsharp fielding.

Having got that kind of platform, Pakistan needed to use the last 15 overs for planned acceleration. But yet again, just when things were going well, the batting side made a complete meal of what seemed a clinical task. Imran Nazir, who asked for a runner supposedly with some slight muscular strain (rather strangely, though he batted the second half of his innings with a runner, he was back in the field for the South African innings, and racing around like a hare, which does raise a question or two), took on the onus of acceleration and shortly after the pair had registered the 100 of the partnership (off 152 balls), looked to loft a full length delivery from Klusener over the on side field. The ball was too full for the shot, Nazir played all round it, and lost his stumps, walking back after a superbly compiled 71 off 114 deliveries.

The very next ball put Klusener on the verge of a hat-trick. Moin, promoting himself to up the tempo, fell to his usual achilles heel, of going too far across and shaping to play off to leg, missing the line of another fullish length ball, and getting trapped bang in front.

And the slide was on. In the 39th over, Younus Khan, who after Imran's departure had taken on the mantle of the senior partner, got a ball from Klusener drifting to leg, and flicked it straight to backward square in a very soft dismissal, ending a competent innings of 48.

Klusener must have figured there was no point bowling good deliveries, since the Pakistanis seemed hell bent on giving him wickets to bad ones. So he bowled one down the leg side, and Inzamam, in a lazy glance, feathered it through to the keeper.

Pakistan had slid from a healty 122/1 in 35, to 145/4 at the 40 over mark. And the mayhem continued. Klusener kept one full, and Youhanna like Imran before him looked to whip it away to leg, played around the line, and had his furniture disturbed.

The overs between 40-45, theoretically the point where you wanted to be moving up through the gears, saw Pakistan add 20 for the loss of two more wickets. Abdul Razzaq's lovely late cameo (a Jekyl and Hyde, this guy -- send him at the top, and he is reduced to strokelessness; send him in late, and he hits them anywhere he likes, any time he likes) -- helped take Pakistan to 196/8 at the end of the allotted overs, but that was a good 25, 30 shy of what they should have had given the start they were given.

Klusener led the Proteas off the field, thanks to his five-for haul -- but you've got to figure that Hayward, Kallis, Elworthy and Ntini, backed by the sharp outfielders, set it up for him with tight bowling through the first thirty overs, creating a situation where Pakistan had to go after the bowling, at the risk of making fatal errors.

If Pakistan appeared to have decided, at the outset, to conserve wickets for the big push at the end, South Africa's equally obvious gameplan seemed to be to score steadily right from the outset. This, despite a setback in the very first over when Waqar Younis (who seems to be in the middle of a second cricketing childhood, and is now bowling with the rhythm, and very nearly the pace and verve, of his famous Waqar-the-Wrecker heyday) took out Herschelle Gibbs with a late leg cutter that squared the batsman up, and found the edge for Inzamam to take low at slip with lovely soft hands.

Compare the South African progression with that of Pakistan, and the comparative mindsets become obvious: SA 30/1 iin 5; 45/1 in 10; 71/3 in 15; 94/3 in 20; 107/4 in 25 (Pak 77/1 at this point).

Younis had taken the second wicket when, in the 11th over, he got one to lift and seam outside off, for Kirsten -- a very dangerous player in a small chase, given his ability to drop anchor and just chip the ball around for ever and a day -- to slash, Inzamam again doing very well to go off the ground to hold at full stretch overhead.

Jacques Kallis looked in supreme touch from the first ball he faced, and stroked his way to an ominous 35/37 before an overambitious slash through the point region found him feathering an edge through to the keeper in the 15th over.

Hansie Cronje seemed uncertain of the nature of the wicket, time and again pushing away from his body, looking for bounce that wasn't there and being very lucky to see edges drop short of the keeper and slips. His dismissal against pace seemed inevitable, but it was spin that did for him in the end. In the 22nd over, with Arshad Khan bowling, Cronje looked to take out his frustrations, launched into a sweep, failed to get the elevation and Shoaib Malik, the other spinner in the squad and a fine fielder as well, anticipated superbly at square leg, lunging to his left, covering the line and holding the hard hit very well over his head.

Around this point, things appeared to have the tenor of a breakneck race -- the question being whether South Africa would make the target, or Pakistan would get the wickets, quicker. Consider this -- at the 35 over mark, SA had managed 144, but lost 6 in the process compared to Pakistan's 122/1.

Neil McKenzie, who after sitting padded up for nothing in the first game, as Kirsten and Gibbs pulled off a 10-wicket win, got a chance to bat for an extended spell here and after a scratchy start, settled down to some steady strokeplay, and was beginning to look good, with 31 against his name off 57, when a very good piece of bowling, and seeming paralysis on the part of the batsman, brought about his downfall. Arshad, after flighting nicely for a while, suddenly pushed through one very quick and very full and McKenzie, strangely, stayed pinned on the back foot to a ball that screamed for front foot play -- the result, one of the easiest LBW decisions any umpire ever had to make.

Lance Klusener, devastating in England against pace, has looked all at sea against spin on the slower wickets of India and now in Sharjah. He uses the heck of a heavy bat, and you begin to wonder if that bat, which works like a bludgeon when he is hitting straight and in the V, causes a fractional slowing down on the square shots. You recall him cutting the ball to slip in India, here he chopped it into Moin's hands.

Mark Boucher was looking steady and in control, with Boje -- a more than competent bat -- in support. But one mad moment of needless improvisation did for him. Afridi appears to bowl like he bats -- without much thought, time and again firing deliveries down the leg side so fast that it is touch and go whether the keeper can get to it in time. Here, he bowled one wide of leg, got called, bowled another equally wide, and Boucher for some reason stepped even further to leg and scooped it back to the bowler, in a parody of an inside out drive.

From then on, it was all Boje -- and the Pakistani bowlers. Several things about the handling of the bowlers did surprise me at this point. For one thing, with the tail out there, it seemed strange that Moin was leaving Waqar Younis, easily the most lethal bowler around when the ball is reversing, unused. With some runs on the board to back him, Younis could have been used to attack and take out Elworthy and the rest of the tail. Instead, Afridi continued -- and slammed one down the leg side that beat the batsman and keeper and went through for four precious byes. Razzaq at the other end produced an incutter that cannoned into off stump -- only, the bowler had overstepped and Moin, ignoring the no ball call, was celebrating the dismissal when he realised to his chagrin that the ball had gone through for four byes, plus the no ball.

Such largesse, with so little on the board, was going to cost them. And Boje, who seems to have ice in his veins and high tensile steel for nerves, with two clinical hits through the covers defused the Younis threat when he was finally brought on with just 16 to get. Appropriately, given the way the final phase had gone, the winning runs came when Mohammad Akram produced an incutter that beat both Boje, and Moin, for four more byes.

South Africa have now defeated Pakistan 14 successive times. And won 7 out of 7 in Sharjah. Talk of streaks, this one is a mile wide.

With two wins, the Proteas are now pretty sure of a final spot. Pakistan, with no points in two games, are in danger of elimination. And Lance Klusener, with his 6th five wicket haul, was man of the match.

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