06:30
Unknown
AHMEDABAD: Till a day before the second Twenty20 International between Pakistan and India, Yuvraj Singh was finding it extremely difficult to middle the ball, even in the nets.
But a toe-crusher from a rookie Pakistani paceman in front of a jam-packed Sardar Patel Stadium shook the star Indian all-rounder out of his slumber.
After being hit on his boot by the giant Mohammad Irfan with a lightning yorker at the start of his innings, Yuvraj was soon in his element as he took the game away from Pakistan with a 36-ball 72, his best knock in Twenty20 Internationals.
“Yesterday I was batting in the nets and I couldn’t middle a single ball, so I was trying to spend time in the middle,” said Yuvraj.
“That yorker (from Mohammad Irfan) reminded me of Wasim Akram but that’s cricket, you got to take a few blows,” added Yuvraj who was adjudged man of the match.
“We thought 160-170 was a good total but if MS (Dhoni) and me stayed till the end we knew we could score more,” said Yuvraj who helped India reach 192-5 after being put into bat on a flat wicket.
Mohammad Hafeez was named man of the series for his back-to-back fifties but the Pakistani skipper was visibly upset with his team’s showing in the second and last T20 game.
“When we were bowling, we didn’t follow the basics. We bowled short of a length. The partnership between MS Dhoni and Yuvraj was the difference.
“In the first six overs we played very well but from the seventh to tenth over we didn’t score as much as we should have,” lamented Hafeez.
MS Dhoni, the Indian captain, was pleased with the performance of his relatively inexperienced pace attack, especially in the death overs.
“A lot depends on the youngsters bowling the last overs. I think they held their nerve nicely. They were feeling the pressure but they responded really well and executed the yorkers and when they wanted to bowl slower ones they did that.
“We got off to a very good start from the openers. Yuvi was at his best, those big sixes and fours. We got ten runs more than what we would have been happy with. Overall it was good competition between the
After being hit on his boot by the giant Mohammad Irfan with a lightning yorker at the start of his innings, Yuvraj was soon in his element as he took the game away from Pakistan with a 36-ball 72, his best knock in Twenty20 Internationals.
“Yesterday I was batting in the nets and I couldn’t middle a single ball, so I was trying to spend time in the middle,” said Yuvraj.
“That yorker (from Mohammad Irfan) reminded me of Wasim Akram but that’s cricket, you got to take a few blows,” added Yuvraj who was adjudged man of the match.
“We thought 160-170 was a good total but if MS (Dhoni) and me stayed till the end we knew we could score more,” said Yuvraj who helped India reach 192-5 after being put into bat on a flat wicket.
Mohammad Hafeez was named man of the series for his back-to-back fifties but the Pakistani skipper was visibly upset with his team’s showing in the second and last T20 game.
“When we were bowling, we didn’t follow the basics. We bowled short of a length. The partnership between MS Dhoni and Yuvraj was the difference.
“In the first six overs we played very well but from the seventh to tenth over we didn’t score as much as we should have,” lamented Hafeez.
MS Dhoni, the Indian captain, was pleased with the performance of his relatively inexperienced pace attack, especially in the death overs.
“A lot depends on the youngsters bowling the last overs. I think they held their nerve nicely. They were feeling the pressure but they responded really well and executed the yorkers and when they wanted to bowl slower ones they did that.
“We got off to a very good start from the openers. Yuvi was at his best, those big sixes and fours. We got ten runs more than what we would have been happy with. Overall it was good competition between the
Posted in: Sports
0 comments:
Post a Comment