A Fantastic Tournament

I was not able to watch much of the Women’s World Cup ’17. I watched only about 7-8 games of a languid tournament spread over a period of a month. Luckily though, I happened to see some of the most thrilling encounters. I saw Pakistan take on South Africa and defend a modest target with a lot of heart, applying the skid breaks to the South African innings and almost making them trip before they somehow escaped. I saw England; having fallen in their opening encounter against India, slay everyone in their sights till they met Australia. The two sides produced a last-ball thriller, with Australia managing 2 runs when 6 were needed. England then went on to beat South Africa in another nail-biter in the semis; where the lower order batting helped them overhaul a seemingly gettable but ultimately tough target.

And then, there was the great final. In such tournaments, knockout games are rarely as thrilling and some of the best cricket is often played in the group stages, when there is less at stake and when it is easier to throw caution to the wind. Final games are often found guilty of promising much more than they deliver. Usually, a team could get overwhelmed by the occasion and fail to turn up or another could stamp its class with such force that the game peters out. But the two finalists here were in some mood. The twists and turns produced for a fine contest which could have gone either way till the last ball was bowled. It is difficult to find a game in recent memory to rival this final, in its number of moments where the momentum seemed to shift from one team to another.

England’s slow and steady start, the fall of wickets after the 14^th over, then the partnership between Sarah Taylor and Nat Sciver, the counter-burst from Jhulan Goswami to leave England reeling around the 40-over mark and the final push from the gutsy lower-order pairing of Katherine Brunt and Jenny Gunn. 228 seemed below par but it was the final and India were up against it. And yet Punam Raut and Harmanpreet Kaur put them in control. Kaur, when asked to knuckle down in pursuit of a tricky chase, responded brilliantly and till she was in the middle India looked good. Even after she fell, Veda Krishnamurthy took India within 38 runs of the trophy with Raut still giving company.

But that’s when the game went bonkers. India lost 4 wickets in the space of 10 runs; the last of them Jhulan Goswami, castled by a ramrod straighter one. Running out of batting partners, Deepti Sharma started to counter-attack to bring India within a sniff of getting the target into single digits. Pandey’s run-out was perhaps the decisive turning point of the game though there was still Gunn’s baffling drop to give Poonam Yadav a life. On another night, it could’ve left her with a lifelong scar but Anya Shrubsole was so consistent with her straigther deliveries that it hardly mattered.

It is safe to say that the Women’s World Cup was supposed to be a rather less attractive cousin of the Champions Trophy, staged in the same surroundings just a few weeks earlier. If you are to compare the tournaments in terms of advertising revenues and gate receipts, it will be a no contest. But there should be no doubt about which of the two tournaments produced better contests on the field. There were some great teams on display in the Women’s World Cup, including England and India, but surely the bigger theme here was the coming of age of a tournament. The women have produced quite the party.

Fakhar Zaman's unlikely heist...

Just how did this happen? Fakhar Zaman was not supposed to do this. Hell, he wasn’t even supposed to be in the playing eleven. Drafted in on the run, after the shellacking Pakistan received at the hands of India, he replaced Ahmed Shahzad for the second match. Shahzad was so bad in the opener; that anything Zaman brought to the table would have been an improvement. To predict that he will play the role that he ultimately did; was quite inconceivable at that point.

Like the hero’s side-kick who - after being drafted in at the last moment by the casting manager - goes on to deliver a cameo to savour; Zaman shone brighter than any other Pakistani batsman at the Champions Trophy. In a tournament where most teams focussed on keeping wickets intact while building a steady base in the first 10-15 overs, Pakistan plumped for an outright pinch-hitter in Zaman. They were perhaps forced to do that, considering the lack of hitting muscle in their lower order. Zaman’s hitting prowess meant that he could ease the pressure on the batsmen to follow. They were, therefore, ready to risk his wicket in exchange of an early tempo to the innings.

It suited Pakistan all right because unlike the more powerful batting sides in the tournament; their game depended heavily on the bowling trio of Junaid, Amir and the irresistible middle-over threat of Hasan Ali. Their revival began against South Africa in a rain-hit encounter; continued with an error-prone yet thrilling win against Sri Lanka and culminated in two clinical performances against England and India to seal an emphatic comeback. In the first three of those games; they bowled first and restricted the opposition to below-par scores. In each of those games, Zaman came out flailing his sword and played little gems to break the back of the chase and leave the bowling a bit dazed by the time he departed.

He wasn’t always great on the eye; but he scored runs at more than a run-a-ball all the time and he ensured that the opposition bowling – with not too many runs to play with – found it difficult to find their feet. As a result, by the time he was dismissed, the run rate equation was tilted in favour of Pakistan and all that the middle-order had to do was to nudge the ball around and not lose too many wickets. In the final, he went one step ahead, this time setting up the game for his bowlers with a magnificent hundred. Repreived very early in the innings; he was more cautious this time around but after losing Azhar Ali to a mix-up, changed gears spectacularly. The hitting remained unorthodox but the base he set-up meant that Pakistan’s stronger suit, the bowling, had just too many runs to play with.

Like his shot-making, Zaman also looked a bit awkward in his demeanor. It seemed as if he took a little time to feel at home having been rushed into the thick of the action. His smiles were stifled, his celebrations were muted and he was generally a quiet contributor. Unlike the in-your-face running of Amir or the camera-friendly smoke-bomb celebration of Hasan Ali, Zaman shied away from the limelight. Yet, like his skipper Sarfraz, he looked every bit a likeable character.

After the loss against India where they seemed to lose the plot completely, Pakistan almost built a winning side on the go. Zaman and Junaid were drafted in and instantly clicked, Fahim Ashraf played a key role when called in, Rumman Raees ensured Amir wasn’t missed in the semi-final before Amir himself came back to bowl the momentum-shifting spell in the final. Winning global tournaments does not seem to be enough for Pakistan. They are obsessed with creating a compelling narrative along the way. But even in this big story, the mini-puzzle of just how Fakhar Zaman turned up on time, seems to be intriguing. Shahzad’s injury, Zaman’s own illness before the final, Bumrah’s no-ball – all somehow hint that Zaman was destined to play his hand.