Asian giants clash for Twenty20 World Cup
Chris DHAMBARAGE Reporting
CRICKET: Asian giants and arch rivals India and Pakistan will
clash in the inaugural International Cricket Council Twenty20 World Cup
tournament final at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg today.
In the two semifinals played on Saturday India knocked out Australia
by 15 runs at the Kingsmead Stadium in Durban while Pakistan defeated
New Zealand by six wickets at the Newlands Stadium in Cape Town.
Even then India’s success over the Australians had great significance
because they had the better of the reigning World champions in a high
scoring encounter. They rattled up 188 for 5 after deciding to bat first
and then restricted the powerful Australian batting line up to 173 for
7.
Their road to the final has been quite outstanding following back to
back victories against England and the host nation South Africa. Now
they are just a match away from winning the inaugural Twenty20 World
title and will start favourites to beat their arch rivals.
The most significant fact in these two teams is that none of them
made it to the final round of the recently concluded 50 over ICC World
Cup tournament held in the West Indies.
India lost to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to make an early exit while
Pakistan suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Ireland which was
followed by the death of their head coach Bob Woolmer.
But both teams seem to have recovered magnificently following those
major setbacks and are now ready to battle it out with the winner
collecting a total prize money of US dollars 490,000.
The Pakistan team is also a talented outfit with some superb all
rounders in their ranks. Their entry into the Twenty20 tournament final
is a real morale booster having earlier gone through a period of
difficulties especially during the ICC World Cup in the Caribbean.
Pakistan will also have a psychological advantage having remained as
the only unbeaten side in this competition. They had the opportunity of
defeating both the reigning World champions Australia and the runners up
Sri Lanka during the Super Eight stage of the tournament.
This is of course not the first time that the two teams will be
playing each other in this tournament. The last time the two teams met
in the first round it turned out to be a thriller and the game ended in
a tie.
However India went on to beat Pakistan on a bowl out system. India
will be hoping to revive their happy memories of the 2003 ICC World Cup
played in South Africa where they reached the final before going down to
Australia.
In addition they defeated South Africa in their only Twenty20
international last year. Despite having rested some of their big stars
for this tournament India have already made a tremendous impact under
their new captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
The teams:
India (from): Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Yuvraj Singh,
Piyush Chawla, Gautam Gambhir, Dinesh Karthik, Irfan Pathan, Yusuf
Pathan, Virender Sehwag, Joginder Sharma, Harbhajan Singh, Rohit Sharma,
R. P. Singh, Ajit Agarkar, S. Sreesanth and Robin Uthappa.
Pakistan (from): Shoaib Malik (captain), Shahid Afridi,
Shohail Tanvir, Kamran Akmal, Fawad Alam, Yasir Arafat, Mohammed Asif,
Salman Butt, Umar Gul, Mohammed Hafeez, Rao Ifthikar, Younus Khan, Imran
Nazir, Abdur Rehman and Misbah l Haq.
JOHANNESBURG, Sunday |
