We suck =/
Failures of the game: Sami and Hafeez - I blame the captaincy on Hafeez as I'm not sure what Afridi was going for there...
It seems as though we were very fixated - things had to go to plan, and we had no flexibility.
Now, we need Australia to beat Bangladesh. Hopefully they don't let us down.
Indeed, that's how I felt about the strategy. They'd clearly predetermined that Razzaq and Alam weren't options and the orders themselves didn't seem to be too heavily affected by the actual match situation. Afridi was a good example of what happens when you bowl one too many overs without a wicket. To attack a strong partnership, the patterns needed to gather more complication.
It was classic Sami, he had the cards in his hand and initially looked good, but when put under pressure he folded. Consider the fateful over to David Hussey;
Length ball, middle stump - straight 6
Full ball, leg stump - straight 2
Wide slower ball - wd
Short of length, middle stump - midwicket 6
Short of length, wide of off - straight 6
Short of length, outside off - straight 6
Yorker, off stump - cover 1
Where is the execution in this over? The slower ball is wasted, the yorker is too late and there's no hint of the bouncer which got Warner out. Even a fuller length would have been a good change-up. With some sense he could have gotten it right, but instead we've got a bloke who is flying on autopilot against a guy who has RPG-7s for arms.
On the other hand, Aamer and Tait both bowled really well. There were a couple of little slips, but they got so much right and were rewarded. Saeed Ajmal was also very effective and; although the damage was already done; helped to create the situation from which Australia destabilised.
