What went wrong is arrogance - PAK was planning for final before reaching there, while they were playing against an inspired side that were not ready to leave it without a fight. In short, playing too many shallow cricket both at domestics & international front has made PAK players mentally weak - you challenge them they'll falter. If that 4th wicket was down say for 56, I can safely say, PAK might have started chasing before lunch.
I always say, PAK players play cricket in domestics which are actually lower quality & less competitive than Lancashire league. In past, against BD team, same situation, you would have seen Mushi playing a half cooked shot and make it 120/5 - it would have ended there. Our boys are catching up in the mental aspect of the game - defended a tight game against AFGs, then recover from such position.
Batting is more technical - along with guts/temperament you need technique as well - looking at any PAK batsman, may be apart from Babar sometimes, you'll never feel the comfort that they are in command - almost like always risking to lose a wicket or two - hence against better teams, you'll hardly see a 100+ partnership from PAK. That's not the case for BD batsmen - at least 3 of them; once set Tamim, Mushi & Mahmudullah are quite reliable - PAK just expected that like their batsmen one of the BD batsmen will throw the wicket - they was just going through the motion, until it was too late - Mithun's lack of game awareness and an absolute beauty from Afridi stopped us at 240, instead of 280, from a start of 12/3.
Regarding Sarfraz's Captaincy, I think guy has grown up playing club cricket with buddies, where he must have been a hero from junior age, which has made him quite a good ring leader - very good when chips are up - charming, cheering players, keeping things in control .... but guy is tactical bot, doesn't have much clue what to do when chips are down. Same thing happened yesterday - his bowlers gave a dream start and things were smooth - 2 of the 3 dismissals were absolute pitch of a ball, didn't need any input from Captain .... then when he found that things are getting a bit bumpy, he had absolutely no clue. In general the first sign of Captain losing plot is when he starts to follow the game & asks bowlers what to do, rather than sharing his instructions and then asking for bowler's view.
Mashrafee is tactically good, playing for 15 years now and he has got some of the best coaches around to guide him. In BPL as well he has won 2-3 titles with different set of players in different team. But, yesterday I think what worked is that team's moral & confidence was high - they believed in themselves after such an early escape. I have never seen BD team fielding that good, but more importantly they hold on to catches when it mattered. Business usual, you would have seen Rubel dropping that one & Fakhar smashing 36 in no time within PP bringing asking down to 4 level.
Mash has personality, which Sarfraz doesn't have - players feel ownership in field when they make a mistake under Mash & try to improve ... PAK players are scared of making mistake under Sarfraz (which they might not say openly, I have seen enough to understand body language), this doesn't help team when they are under pressure. Above all, Mash leads from the front within his limited capacity - batted well to put something against IND from 104/7, then took responsibility of bowling in death against AFGs, when he could have easily avoided the risk of losing the game - PAK is trying to accommodate Sarfraz in batting line up and then keeping him comfortable without selecting a back-up WK, or appointing a Deputy. When you need to protect your Captain, how he is going to lead from the front?
On game, Mustafiz bowled really well which helped - he was brought for early wicket and went for the kill, then helped by PAK sending a dummy at 4. Opening with Miraz probably isn't that much of a rocket science as anyone would do so when two lefti in batting and one is a blunt slogger. Taking pace out of ball always works in UAE, more so against a stone waller & a bottom hand butcher. From 18/3, on that wicket - you have to play really, really poor not to defend 240; particularly against PAK, who I am sure would have struggled against HK or Nepal as well to chase that target from 18/3. Had Liton not dropped that sitter, PAK won't have crossed 170.
I wrote few days back that BD team is going through a transition. Hathura being a fantastic coach for us didn't end it well. The way he left for SRL wasn't professional at all & then that Cobra taunt was disgusting from him. He should have realized that, like BD team, success with us also made him what he is today - how many knew Hathurasinghe before BD stint? For almost a year, we had several changes in coach, manager, technical coaches and Captains - finally the back room is settled with long term appointments of key people - Head Coach, batting, pace/spin bowling, fielding coaches, trainer and other support staffs. Hathura actually took 3-4 support staffs with him at his departure and we were at a mess - Walshi, Jorgensen, Champak, Khaled Mahmud ... were serving as make shifts. It was only a matter of time that team should improve from it's rock bottom state of losing 3-0 to AFGs.
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