In the beginning of the tournament, making it to the semi-finals even seemed impossible for Pakistan. Losing both warm-up matches to India and South Africa, the journey ahead did not look bright for Pakistan. We lost our first match against England by 48 runs. Our losses were unexplainable. We had the best team on paper and yet our performances were shitty as hell. We didn't know what was wrong, all we knew was that we had to fix it. Next game we bounced back as we went against Netherlands [who has previously beaten England] and defeated them by a massive 82 runs! Although Netherlands is not much of a competition, our win was necessary or else we would've gotten kicked out the tournament. Then we faced Sri Lanka and lost to them by 19 runs. It seemed like whenever we faced a good team, we would find ourselves struggling. That started changing when Abdul Razzaq joined the squad after quitting the ICL. That did the magic and Pakistan defeated New Zealand who had only lost one match in the tournament so far [to undefeated South Africa and only by one run]. Pakistan came back to it's normal stage of being an unpredictable team who can suprise the world and even themselves when it comes to gametime! After the win, Pakistan sailed through Ireland and into the semis while Umar Gul takes 5 wickets in one match [a first in twenty20] and sets a world record. But the biggest match was yesterday. South Africa going through the whole tournament without even losing a single match would've scared any other team but not Pakistan! Pakistan did the impossible and added yet another upset to the list by being the first team to defeat South Africa in the whole tournament and making it to the World Cup Twenty20 Final. The win wasen't easy but with some brilliant batting from the whole team [Shahid Afridi Shined with 51 runs] and great bowling by Shahid Afridi and Saeed Ajmal, the win had to belong to Pakistan. Today's semi-final between Sri Lanka and West Indies will decide who we will face in the Final, but i say that doesn't matter. As long as we play well and put up a fight, we are sure to win!
Caught Between a Rock and an Immigrant Identity
14 years ago
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