If your team needing 5 of the final over with 6 wickets in hand, it should get home 99 times out of 100. Its an anomaly, not the norm. With Quetta sitting easy at the top of the order, it doesn’t make much of a difference. Yet, bones are picked from any loss. Heroes and villains are identified. Some blame Sarfraz for pushing himself down the order, others see Bravo as the culprit. There is another idea floating that Shehzad didn’t take the 2nd run of the 1st ball of the over so he could have a chance to complete his century.
In a ground with absurdly short boundaries, twos were in short supply. In Islamabad’s 239 they had ran just one, two. Considering the situation of the match with 4 needed of five, the shot that was played, the fielder cutting the angle, the ground size, at the minute it looked a decent decision not to go for a 2nd and risk a runout? There was much to lose and not a lot to gain. What happened next was a sort of a brain explosion where the batsmen perhaps froze. Much of it wasn’t Ahmed Shehzad’s fault.
Despite losing all the big guns he kept at it. Hitting those massive (and some not so massive) sixes off the fast bowlers, he brought Quetta to the brink of victory. Yet he failed and was blamed by a lot of fans. Perhaps, they are guilty of looking at the style more than the substance. Yesterday’s performance had the usual Ahmed Shehzad like theatrics. Covering his face in disappointment for a considerable amount of time after letting the ball go for a four, was one of the moments. ‘Isko oscar do’ comments were rife after that.
But now in 2 consecutive innings of substance the focus still very much is on his ‘drama’. This idea has been inculcated in our heads by Waqar Younus, and being tagged with Umer Akmal has made things worse for Shehzad. When they talk about one, the other automatically comes in the conversation. This has hurt Shehzad more than Akmal, simply because Akmal has been involved in a lot more ‘stuff’.
The coach of Quetta Gladiators recently said that both Akmal and Shehzad have a future with Pakistan. It remains to be seen if fans are willing to look past their ‘extravaganza’ that comes along. Top quality innings like yesterday’s should help shed the image of ‘bad boy’.
