CRICKET NEWS - Sri Lanka and Pakistan produced a titanic battle for the ages, filled with calamitous mistakes and individual brilliance in equal measure, in their ICC Champions Trophy group match at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff on Monday as both sides slugged it out and came back from the dead on multiple occasions only for Pakistan to run home winners by 3 wickets with 31 balls remaining.
Cricket’s pendulum swung more than once today as first Pakistan, and then Sri Lanka and then Pakistan again were on top and seemingly in control of the clash only for remarkable fight backs and periods of self-destruction on both sides keeping everyone watching in the ground and around the world on the edge of their seats.
It started with a vintage display of swing bowling from Pakistan’s seamers that, if you squinted at your TV at just the right angle, might have had you mistaking it for a rerun of Pakistan circa 1996 as Junaid Kahn (3-40 from 10), Hasan Ali (3-43 from 10) and Mohammad Amir (2-53 from 10) had the ball on a string as they arced it through the air and nipped it laterally off the seam.
It started with a vintage display of swing bowling from Pakistan’s seamers that, if you squinted at your TV at just the right angle, might have had you mistaking it for a rerun of Pakistan circa 1996 as Junaid Kahn (3-40 from 10), Hasan Ali (3-43 from 10) and Mohammad Amir (2-53 from 10) had the ball on a string as they arced it through the air and nipped it laterally off the seam.
