In a tournament already loaded with low scoring matches, and in a
season dominated by Australian wins, there came another contest at the
Melbourne Cricket Ground today to reinforce the pattern
John Polack16-Jan-2000In a tournament already loaded with low scoring matches, and in a
season dominated by Australian wins, there came another contest at the
Melbourne Cricket Ground today to reinforce the pattern. Against
Pakistan this time (and in the fifth match of this Carlton and United
Series), it arrived under the imprimatur of a six wicket win with 13
deliveries of a rain-reduced contest to spare.Assuming the rare guise of a day match in Melbourne (all the other
games at this venue in this series are day-night affairs as indeed
most have been here over recent seasons), this encounter initially
consolidated another convention too. Namely, that was the maintenance
of the almost inextricable relationship between rain and the MCG in
the 1999-2000 season – the start delayed by two and a half hours as a
patient crowd of 37,325 waited for the heavens to clear themselves of
persistent drizzle.When the action finally began, Australia struck the first and possibly
even the most crucial blow of the entire day when it won the
toss. This afforded its bowlers the opportunity to expose the current
fragility of Pakistan’s top order again in humid, overcast and
generally bowler-friendly conditions. Duly, Pakistan’s batsmen then
endured a torrid beginning – bounce and sideways movement in abundance
through the early overs. It did not take long for the difficulty of
the task in surviving the new ball to be revealed. Recalled opener
Wajahatullah Wasti (8) departed in the fifth over when he was unable
to fully cover the line of a Glenn McGrath delivery which reared off a
length and attracted his outside edge. And, as if the task was not
arduous enough with which to begin, matters became even worse in the
ninth over, when Ijaz Ahmed (0) was the victim of a very doubtful lbw
decision from umpire Peter Parker after being struck high on the front
pad by a Damien Fleming delivery.There came a recovery in the middle of the innings from Saeed Anwar
(49) and Yousuf Youhana (20) and again at the end from Abdur Razzaq
(51*), but the die was essentially cast from that point. In fact, it
said much about the extent of the visitors’ problems that more than
half of their wickets were lost to the unlikely combination of
bit-part bowlers Shane Lee and Andrew Symonds. Offering little in the
way of anything other than standard medium pace, it was Lee (3/24 from
eight overs) and Symonds (2/27 off his eight) who essentially tore the
heart of the Pakistani effort. In the space of eight deliveries at one
point, the two made three vital breaks; Anwar (49), Youhana (20) and
Wasim Akram (0) all finding ways to get themselves out when rigid
application and concentration should have been the order of the
exercise. That Lee was then able to induce the dangerous Moin Khan (5)
to swing a ball straight down the throat of Damien Martyn at deep
square leg – another wicket thereby gifted in a manner which even the
bowler himself probably would have been scarcely able to believe –
only reinforced their impact in an innings in which the score
ultimately meandered to 9/176 at the completion of the 41 allotted
overs.As paceman Shoaib Akhtar (2/32 off eight overs) made yet another
dramatic entrance, the Australians suffered a rash of early problems
of their own – the score tumbling to 3/38 around the departures of
Adam Gilchrist (21), Ricky Ponting (0) and Mark Waugh (12). Introduced
in the fifth over (with the score having already reached 32), he
rewrote the script with his very first delivery by convincing Umpire
Simon Taufel to rule that a marginal lbw decision against Gilchrist
should go his way. Just three balls later, he was irresistibly at it
again; inducing Ponting (0) to launch a loose drive at a scorching off
cutter and edge a catch to Wasti at second slip. Suddenly, Pakistan
was alight; Youhana’s pick up and throw from square leg to run Waugh
(12) out in the seventh over after a terrible mix-up with Michael
Bevan (3*) confirming that they could suddenly do no wrong and the
match was well and truly alive.From there, though, Pakistan’s bowlers failed to make another
incision and Australian captain Steve Waugh (81*), Martyn (39*) and
Bevan (15) led their team to the sort of regulation win that had been
anticipated prior to those three brisk dismissals. After a relatively
forgettable first three matches of the series with the bat, man of the
match Waugh played an innings of great substance and, typically,
offered just the degree of patience and level-headedness required in
the situation. It was not a hand filled with great strokes necessarily
(although some of his driving through the off side on occasions was
brutal in its extravagance), but his nudges, cuts and glances were
exactly what were demanded against an attack that was shuffled
repeatedly, and which operated manfully in its quest for an unlikely
success.And whilst it was not a completely perfect display, because Waugh was
probably the guilty party in the run out of Michael Bevan (15) and he
was also badly missed by Moin off Saqlain Mushtaq’s bowling with his
score at 60, it was certainly well and truly satisfactory enough to
take his team to the top of the Carlton and United Series table for
the first time this season.
