Game changers

HYDERABAD: Pakistan needed someone to display grit and guts in pursuit of a daunting total of 345 against Sri Lanka, and Mohammad Rizwan demonstrated that he possessed them in spades, hobbling through much of his heroic and game-changing innings of an unbeaten 131 (121b, 8x4, 3x6).

This after his team’s take-off was turbulent being buffeted by strong gusts of wind, and with the captain leaving the cockpit abruptly, it was far from certain whether his team would emerge unscathed following the early blows it suffered.

Walking in at 37 for two in the eighth over, Rizwan played with a steady head and assured hands and he found a perfect ally in fellow centurion Abdullah Shafique, who was making his World Cup debut.

Together they ensured that their team made a safe landing, registering a thumping six-wicket win over Sri Lanka in the ICC World Cup match here on Tuesday. The win also extended Pakistan’s perfect World Cup record of never losing to Sri Lanka and it now stands at an enviable 8-0.

And perhaps more significantly this remarkable victory, coming as it did ahead of the crunch clash against India on Saturday, would imbue the team with a great degree of confidence.

Rizwan refused to walk off the field despite it being amply evident that he was writhing in pain, and he continued to soldier on valiantly taking cognizance of the delicate situation his team was in.

He needed no reminding that any disruption caused by him leaving the ground to attend to a medical supervision would greatly jeopardise his team’s victory prospects.

Even after Shafique fell for a brilliant 113 (103b, 10x4, 3x6), after stitching together a match-winning 176-run stand, Rizwan was unfazed by what lay ahead and carried on serenely, unmindful of what his body was complaining about.

Things looked drastically different at the dinner break and you could have easily forgiven the island nation for getting a bit ahead of itself, thinking, and backed up by sound logic, that it finally extricated itself from the World Cup jinx that’s been plaguing it since the inaugural edition in 1975.

Right from the moment it won the toss and posted what looked like a winning total of 344, propelled by two sublime hundreds from Kusal Mendis and Sadeera Samarawickrama, it had every reason to believe that the auspicious moment had finally dawned in the twilight hours of a balmy Tuesday evening.

Pakistan’s top order has been shaky of late with the out-of-sorts Fakhar Zaman making way for Shafique. And remember this was Shafique’s World Cup debut and having played just four ODIs coming into this match, it was something of a leap in the dark as to how he would cope with the pressure of chasing down a daunting score.

But as it turned out, Sri Lanka was let down by the insipid effort of its bowlers who bowled a whopping 25 wides. How Sri Lanka would have dearly wished that it had taken a leaf out of Rizwan’s book.

BRIEF SCORES: Sri Lanka 344/9 in 50 overs (K Mendis 122, S Samarawickrama 108, H Ali 4/71) lost to Pakistan 345/4 in 48.2 overs (Md. Rizwan 131*, A Shafique 113)