Wahab Riaz’s fiery spell not enough, again!

Well we know what happens. Someone or something provokes Wahab, and he turns into a bowling hulk. The ball starts to reverse, the bounce is awkward, and life for batsmen extremely difficult. Yet, those moments, those spells aren’t match winning. He picks one or two wickets, beats the bat many a time, hits the batsmen on the body or head, bowls thunderbolt yorkers but he fails to deliver in the larger scheme of things.

Ramiz Raja was kind enough to tell us what happened yesterday. It was his former coach, who loves having a dig at generally everyone and anyone, aimed for Wahab Riaz. Riaz, promised to blow Waqar’s team away. He couldn’t manage that, its T20. So you can only bowl overs and that too in spells of one over. For a diesel engine operator like Wahab, it’s not ideal but he got on with his job yesterday.

He picked up Ronchi, when he was threatening to break free. A short ball aimed at the body of Ronchi, may seem like what Lahore and Karachi were guilty of yesterday, but it was Wahab, bowling at over 145kmph, and angling across. It wasn’t easy by any mean. Then he came back to pick up, Hussain Talat, who looked superb for his 29. By this time, Wahab was finding some reverse and took advantage.

Afridi as an opener & turning different metal into gold

And he came into his own in his last two overs. Asif Ali, had finally shown why he was being persisted by Islamabad’s management. Umaid Asif and a half fit Hasan Ali were taken to task. But to both Asif and Duminy Wahab did not give an inch. Yorkers at the base of the stumps at supreme pace, not much the batsmen could about it. But he got only one wicket to show for it. It easily could have been 200, but Wahab w/o much support kept it to 182.

However, like most memorable Wahab spells, the team surrendered timidly. Wahab himself, hit a lusty blow or two, but it was too little too late. Perhaps, a bit like his brilliant yet relatively unrewarding spell.