I’m sure a number of you would raise your hands if I asked who thought that MoYo was a passive captain!
Yes, he was quite defensive in New Zealand but the warmer climates of Australia seems to have thawed the excess ice in his brain!
First, it was the Dhoni-line theory, whereby he posted 8 men on the off side and a solitary man on the leg-side (mid-off) and then instructed Asif to bowl wide of off-stump when Twatto was in his 90’s.
It got to Watson and MoYo nearly got his man, only to see Rauf drop a fairly simple catch.
Today, it was his instructions to the openers.
Oh beard, what say ye now?
Salman Butt and Imran Farhat batted as if they never even knew ODIs existed, let alone T20.
For the record, they scored 70 runs in 33.5 overs at a RR of 2.08!
Yes, Imran had quite some fortune. First, he gets dropped by Marcus North off Siddle, whose face was sizzling so much that, as Warne once said to Graeme Smith, you could fry an egg on his face in 2 seconds!
Later, he came down the track and had a wild swipe at the ball off Siddle, me thinks, and then ambled to the crease, very nearly getting run out off an underhand throw by Haddin.
But, as many Pakistani fans will attest to it, lady luck is on Imran’s side and he sure is making good use of this fortune.
Coming back to the subject, MoYo’s instructions seem to have been to go out there and graft for the first session and graft they did! Didn’t lose a wicket and scored 2.08 per over. It also helped to knock the shine off the ball.
Post-lunch, they came all guns blazing! Off the next 58 overs, they scored 247 at a RR of 4.26! MoYo led the charge with 46 off 56 and Umar Akmal continued it with 48 off 47! Shame, they couldn’t go on and make it big!
However, Doug’s 3 wickets after the new ball was taken seriously impacted them, but, IMO, they’re still in a good position with a lead of about 205 runs.
Perhaps, MoYo got some tips from Younis Khan on how to deceive the media and opponents.
If my memory serves me right, Younis said, after their fairly big loss to England in the T20WC, that T20 cricket is like WWE and that no-one should take it seriously.
The rest is history…..
Off Cutter 