Pakistan Cricket’s inability to get out of Australia’s vice like grip on their psyche continued in the semi final of the 2010 World T20 in St.Lucia, West Indies.
Going into the 13th over of Australia’s run chase there was only one winner, and it wasn’t Australia.
It is incredible how the subconscious mind of a team manages to construct what they fear most. They haven’t beaten Australia in the recent past and after the disastrous tour down-under over Xmas last year, the ghosts of performances past swept in and scared the life out of Pakistan’s game.
That doesn’t discount the innings of Cameron White and Mike Hussey, who played phenomenally well.
On this occassion though, Pakistan lost a game rather than Australia winning it.
Why do I say this ? Because Pakistan had played themselves into a position of complete authority only to throw it away.
Okay, lets get down to nitty gritty.
Pakistans’ batting performance was out of this world, they played with rare freedom and no little structure.
The Akmal brothers were the stars of the show, with both orthodox and unorthodox stroke play, hitting down the ground with a full blade and some lovely, quirky 20 20 shots.Flicking over the shoulder, giving themselves room and hitting inside out through the off side, and then coming inside the line of the ball and taking the ball on the full for glances to leg.
It was breathtaking stuff.
The Australian bowlers were put to the sword, indisciplined, poor in plan and execution.
They weren’t helped by poor selection for the Beausejour wicket which was slow and needed the pace taken off, rather than the pace attack that Australia selected.
Pakistan having got to 191, had given themselves a strong target to defend and went about it with conviction.
Australia were reduced to 105-5 in the thirteenth over and were dead and buried. Enter White and then Mike Hussey.
Shahid Afridi’s captaincy relied more on formula rather than homework, if Pakistan had done their strategic preparation and looked at the scoring areas of their opponents they would have immediately put in specific fields for White and Hussey.
Although formula had worked well up until then, you are going to need more than that when put under pressure by Australia.
The old rule of nine fielders not being enough to defend both sides of the field would have been respected and they would have set zone fields, bowling to both White and Hussey’s weaknesses.
Instead they fed the easier hitting zones from mid on to deep square on the leg side.
At the demise of White, Hussey took up the fight and at one stage had scored all his boundaries in front or behind square on the leg side.
Left handers are typically powerful off the legs and a better option would have been to bowl wider and fuller on the off side and ask Hussey to hit from third man to deep mid on. Thereby negating the power hitting options available to Hussey.
It was apparent through the fields set that there had either been no strategic preparation or that Afridi couldn’t read the situation.
Pakistan: Lizard Brain
With the game getting increasingly tense, Kamran Akmal and Afridi pushed up the stress on their players by berating and shouting at them, rather than calming the players down and refocusing them.
As the decible levels went up, the shape of their game deteriorated.
At this stage, when Australia’s fight back began to build, the Pakistan players and Afridi in particular would have begun to wonder whether recent history might repeat.
The focus then shifts from wanting to win, to the fear of losing, when this happens the brain begins to operate from its most primitive and unresourceful space, it becomes survival oriented and the lizard brain takes over.
The lizard brain is left over from our pre-historic days and is useful for survival when faced by a Sabre Tooth Tiger, it isn’t great for strategic thinking and field setting.
Hussey’s hitting at the death was superb, it would though have been more difficult for him to get into his hitting rhythm had they set better fields and bowled up and into the off side.
The strategic goal is always to attack the batters B and C scoring options. This didn’t happen, Hussey found his rhythm and his range, hitting into the leg side favoured his natural game.
Pakistan lost their shape and and ultimately the game.
It is going to be a interesting journey for Waqar Younis in his new role as Coach. It is one thing to win games yourself as one of the worlds’ great fast bowlers, it is another to sit on the sidelines having done your best to prepare and arm your team with game strategy and the ability to execute plans under pressure.
I wish you well old friend.
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About Richard Pybus
I'm Richard Pybus, I've coached Pakistan, Bangladesh, Middlesex, Titans and the Cape Cobras in South Africa and the goal of this site is to help you to play winning cricket.