ICC World T20 : Pakistan vs Australia, Live Updates ICC World Twenty20 2016

Pakistan vs Australia, Live Updates ICC World Twenty20 2016: Pakistan take on Australia in must-win clash

 

Pakistan vs Australia Live Score, Updates: Pakistan take on Australia in Mohali on Friday. (Source: PTI)

Pakistan take on Australia in a must-win ICC World Twenty20 clash in Mohali on Friday. The Shahid Afridi-led unit, if they win today, keep their semis hopes alive because of a good run-rate. Australia, with advantage of an extra game to play, wouldn’t want to slip at this stage in the group of death. Catch live cricket updates and live news from the ICC World Twenty20 match here.  

Pakistan vs Australia Live Cricket Scorecard, Commentary

# India would closely follow this game because Pakistan’s win would make the equation for India and Australia very very interesting

# Exciting contest on the cards in Mohali. Wondering who qualifies and how, at this stage of the tounrament? We have simplified it for you. 

The build-up

We have to play better: Steve Smith

 

 Australia have been the most successful team in the 50-over World Cup but are yet to win the T20 showpiece event. (Source: Reuters)

Australia will have to play better cricket than what they have managed to do so far in the World T20 to have a shot at reaching the semifinals, captain Steve Smith said on Thursday.

There is bad mood rising in the Pakistan camp

 

Pakistan coach Waqar Younis during a training session in Mohali on Wednesday. (Source: Express Photo by Kamleshwar Singh)

It’s a mood story: A bad mood story.

Waqar Younis’s tone at the press conference after the 22-run loss to New Zealand at the PCA Stadium late on Monday, wasn’t as much sarcastic as it was bilious. To a more detached mind, it might have felt a bit of an over-reaction given that the loss, Pakistan’s second in the tournament, hasn’t completely shut the door on them.

There is no groupism in the team: Shehzad

 

Ahmed Shehzad said that after reciting the Kalma he swears he tried his best to secure victory.(Source: AP)

Pakistan’s experienced opener, Ahmed Shehzad has squashed speculations of groupism in the team, saying he didn’t under-performed deliberately during the World Twenty20 match against New Zealand to undermine skipper Shahid Afridi.

Any all-rounder can take up Shane Watson's role, but it’ll be quite difficult to replace his impact

White-ball cricket is very different to red-ball cricket.

There are the strikingly obvious matters such as the length of a match or the colour of a players clothing. More subtly, if you scratch just a little deeper other vagaries emerge to the fore.

As a limited-over player, Shane Watson ranks among Australia's pantheon of greats. Getty Images

For example, white-ball cricket is more open to taking the risk on all-rounders. A good all-rounder has a tough time in Test cricket. They are expected to make centuries with the bat and take five-fors with the ball.

How many have really made it in the history of the game?

Kapil, Imran, Hadlee, Botham, Sobers, Kallis... We would struggle to name 10. In white-ball cricket, all-rounders have a different purpose. They just need to have impact. A pacey 40 here or two quick wickets there. The game tolerates a different view of success.

Concurrently, no matter how good a white-ball player you are, it is your red-ball statistics and performances that will define your career.

Michael Bevan was a freakish ODI batsman. The world’s original “Finisher”. A Shield batting average well over 50. Yet a legacy that rarely pops up in “greatest-ever player” discussion. Why? Because his Test record is perceived as weak.

And this is where many struggle with Shane Watson. Traditional views attempting to define a non traditional cricketer.

Watson burst onto the scene as that talented kid who would take all before him. Tall, shoulders wider than the wingspan of a jumbo jet, blonde hair and a leaky emotional side. We expected a blend of Lance Kluesner’s brutality and Terry Alderman’s cunningness.

In the early days, we received glimpses of it on numerous occasions.

However, most times we simply got injury. It frustrated Shane. It frustrated us.

As a white-ball player, he stands amongst Australia’s elite. Bevan, Gilchrist, Warne, McGrath, Jones, Ponting, Watson. Two World Cup victories and ICC Twenty20 Player of the Tournament in 2012. He’s won games off his own bat. He’s dried up the runs with the ball. He’s probably never even dropped a ball at first slip.

He’s done it all and done it well. Watson is one of the fellas who make the team sheet look stronger. He brings a presence. In this regard he is Gayle, Dhoni and Afridi. His doubters will point to a dodgy demeanour when things aren’t going his way, his use of DRS and Homeworkgate.

But this is all red-ball malarkey. He retired from that version of the game after the last Ashes series. The analysis of that part of his legacy has already been written.

Those same traits, when you look objectively at it, don’t exist when he was playing with the white ball. Perhaps the shorter versions of the game steeled his focus. Less time in which to ponder failure? Just get out there and hit it.

It can be argued that the purest way to define someone’s current white ball worth is their IPL auction price. A ruthless machine that has no time for sympathy, emotion or reputation.

Shane Watson just sold for circa USD $1 million at the most recent ‘circus’. Not many others did.
The market has spoken.

Australia have a flood of all rounders looking to take Watson’s place in Australia’s white-ball line-ups. Mitch Marsh, Maxwell, Faulkner, Coulter Nile and Moises Henriques.

But do any of these give the same sense of security that the name Shane Watson gave? Not yet they don’t.

You can replace the role he played, but it is so much harder to replace his impact.