South Africa on cusp of knockouts while Pakan on brink of exit after World Cup thriller for ages | Cricket-world-cup News

Right through Friday, hope kept flickering for Pakan. They would self-implode repeatedly and then produce a moment of magic that ushered in a fresh ray of hope. Playing along, South Africa too found ways to make it harder for themselves with the bat.
For nine-and-a-half hours, the 29,900 that turned up at Chepauk, went on a roller-coaster ride, giving the World Cup the thriller it so badly needed. For a while in the end, as Pakan seized control out of nowhere, a South Africa choke looked high. Off-colour so far in their campaign, everything seemed to be falling in place for Pakan — who fielded like there was no tomorrow, even though they were still far from their best, and they bowled their hearts out – but only to suffer a soul-crushing defeat. So hard a defeat that their players sank to their feet. Their World Cup future now hangs the barest of bare margins.
Even Chepauk standards, home to classics and thrillers, Friday was a blockbuster. At the halfway stage, as Pakan were bowled out for 270, leaving at least 25-30 runs behind on belter of a track against an in-form South Africa line-up, the fate appeared sealed for Babar Azam’s side. With an attack that has looked totally uncharacteric so far, hopes of Pakan producing magic remained bleak. But, as has always been the case, adversities tend to bring out the best out of Pakan. This was their do or die moment, where they had nothing to lose.

That ‘nothing to lose’ attitude that Shahdab Khan said would be their mantra had already cost them runs with the bat. Batting first in the best of the conditions, their batsmen were guilty of wasting the starts, falling into careful traps South Africa set. Even at the end of the 39th over at 222/5 , with Shadab and Saud Shakeel going strong, 300 appeared a definite possibility. But once again their lack of cutting edge came to the fore.
On a knife’s edge
But with the ball in hand, they produced moments out of nowhere that kept pegging South Africa back every time when they looked to take control. Not even Aidan Markram, who made a eye-catching 91, including an upper-cut six off Haris Rauf, could arrest the tempo that Pakan managed to find in a 17-over spell beginning from the 30th over and lasted till Keshav Maharaj helped an innocuous delivery from Mohammad Nawaz to the fence with four needed off 17. As South Africa rejoiced in a jailbreak, Pakan buried their faces to the ground.
But despite all that Pakan gave and made a contest out of nothing, this was yet another contest where they hardly brought their A-game. Sensing wickets is the only way they can get the job done, Babar, for a change, was proactive on the field, giving bowlers attacking fields to bowl with. But South Africa were equally smart to grab those moments, until they were put under pressure.

Their blueprint with the bat has been to attack, except when they are batting second. It is a bit complex, where with Marco Jansen slotted at No 7, they have never shied away to go on the fifth gear when batting first. But when it comes to chasing, they have been haphazard with that approach, showing caution at periods when they seldom need it. Just like their game against the Netherlands, where they suffered a shock defeat chasing 245, they batted with their handbrakes on at moments. Losing Rassie van der Dussen and Heinrich Klaasen in the space of 17 deliveries helped little. From there on, Markram and David Miller slowed a bit and brought Pakan back into the game. They found boundaries that released the pressure a bit, but as Pakan kept chipping away with key strikes, from 42nd over they were just two deliveries away from suffering another defeat. But thankfully for the Proteas, Maharaj, Lungi Ngidi and Tabraiz Shamsi held their nerves to get the monkey off their backs.

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For Pakan, the one-wicket defeat means their fate isn’t in their own hands. They are alive only mathematically, but theoretically it looks over. The road for them is simple, win their remaining three matches and hope help comes from somewhere. For a team that was top of the ICC ODI ranking for the majority of the year coming into the World Cup, this has been a rude awakening, where nothing has gone right for them. Even over here, where the capacity crowd rallied behind them when Afridi bowled a terrifying last spell.

“Our form had sort of drifted off a little bit,” their team director Mickey Arthur said. He dwelled on the reasons. “There are various reasons. We talk about it every day as to what it could have been. But our form kind of drifted off. And again, we haven’t put the perfect games together. We’ve batted well, we haven’t bowled well. I do think our fielding standards have been average.”
“Those are the things when we go to the training ground, we train every day. We want to work to world-class standards, which we do in terms of our preparation. Again, form just hasn’t allowed us the opportunity to put the perfect game together,” Arthur added.