Sunday, February 27, 2011

Croft crushes Pakistan dreams

The dominating presence surrounding the West Indies side instils fear in the minds of the opposition. The dash of arrogance, wave of confidence, bucketful of self-belief would seem like no team can even remotely challenge them.

The proceedings didn’t suggest anything different when West Indies and Pakistan squared up in the World Cup semifinals at Oval. Openers Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes quickly negated Asif Iqbal’s decision to insert them in, rustling up a solid century stand before cameos from Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd and Collis King propelled them to 293 for six off its allotted 60 overs.

Pakistan suffered an early jolt in the form of Sadiq Mohammad before Majid Khan and Zaheer Abbas showed the cricketing world how to combat fiery pace bowling and for the first time gave Windies a real scare of a semifinal exit with a 166-run stand in 36 overs.

The frustration in the West Indies ranks was clearly evident as Lloyd kept shuffling his bowlers around to break the partnership. He brought Colin Croft into the attack from the Vauxhall end and the move worked wonders.

Croft dislodged Zaheer, seven short of what would have been a well deserved century when the latter flicked one down leg into Derrick Murray’s gloves, much to the relief of the West Indians.

Bowling with his tails up, Croft prized out the well-set Majid caught by Alvin Kallicharran for 81 to significantly swing the balance of the game.

And the initiative was well and truly seized when Croft trapped Javed Miandad lbw for a first-ball duck as Pakistan disintegrated from 176 for one to 187 for four.

Croft, an air traffic controller during his playing days, who later qualified as a pilot, snared three wickets in twelve balls, conceding four runs in crucial spell of bowling to finish with 3 for 29 from eleven overs which nicely set up West Indies’ final entry as Pakistan lost their nine wickets for just 74 runs to be all out for 250 in 56.2 overs.

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