Umar Gul’s heroics with bat stun South Africa

Dilanka Mannakkara

It was an absolute low scoring cliffhanger at the R.Premadasa stadium as the unpredictable Pakistanis pulled off a spectacular chase against the South Africans who got their tactics wrong at crucial moments. Paksitan won this cracker of a game of the last over by 2 wickets with a nervous Saeed Ajmal edging the ball for four in the last over of the game.

Umar Gul was the hero for the Pakistanis, surprisingly with the bat this time around with some lusty hits to bail out Pakistan from a certain defeat.Umer Akmal at the other end kept his cool to chase down a tricky target of 134 on track which had some purchase for the spinners.South African skipper AB De Villiers made strange choices as he bowled out his all rounders Albie Morkel and Jaques Kallis during the latter stages despite his front line spinner Johan Botha having 2 overs left.

Pakistan who made a blazing start to their innings with 24 runs of just 3 overs lost their way with skipper Hafeez and inform man Nasir Jamshed throwing their wickets away to an accurate Robin Peterson.There after the Pakistani batsmen were tangled in a soup,desperately trying to pinch a few singles and in the process lost wickets with batsmen trying to hit out of frustration.

Pakistan were down and out at one stage on 7 for 76, courtesy some extremely irresponsible shots and some tight spin bowling by the Porteas.Then Gul and Umar Akmal took centre stage and shared a stand of 49 for the eighth wicket to inflict this demoralizing defeat on South Africa. The pair stroked a series of audacious boundaries as they took on South Africa's pace attack with Jacques Kallis and Albie Morkel the worst hit. To add to South Africa's worries.

Earlier in the day South Africa won the toss elected to bat first and young left arm spinner Raza Hasan who opened the bowling for the Pakistanis had the dangerous Richard Levi in trouble from ball one.Yaser Arafat dismissed the inform Hashim Amla and a struggling Jaques Kallis soon followed him to the pavilion after giving en easy catch to Shahid Afridi.

Skipper AB De Villiers oddly didn’t come out to bat until late despite being the best batsman of spin and JP Duminy and Farhaan Behardien did the repair work. After Behrdien was dismissed AB finally came out to the crease and creamed the bowlers with ease but holed out to a full toss of Umar Gul to return to the pavilion for 25 runs.Duminy ended up as the highest scorer with a fine 48.