Afghanistan’s bowlers showed potential with a few good overs but the absence of consistency helped Australia bully their attack in Perth
Abhishek Purohit in Perth04-Mar-20152:18
‘We ran into a freight train’ – Moles
From high in the uppermost tiers of the Prindiville Stand, it feels like you are suspended over the WACA outfield. You are not close to the action, but you feel like you are hovering above the players, a bit detached, able to watch the game in its entirety and all its dimensions. Afghanistan do not seem to be bowling particularly badly. Then you glance at the old manual scoreboard. David Warner is on 77. You strain your eyes and check again. Yes, 77. The game is barely 17 overs old.True, Warner has had the bulk of the strike but Afghanistan definitely have not bowled that badly. Dawlat Zadran’s second over has been too good, in fact. He has set Aaron Finch up beautifully with a few away swingers followed by one that moves in. The last ball of the over moves away once more, and this time, Finch is suckered into a drive. It is a sharp catch, too, at first slip.Dawlat bowls a good third over, too. He is trying to draw Steven Smith into pushing at outswingers, but the batsman lets a couple go, and gets off strike with a single. Dawlat beats Warner off the next two deliveries.Clarke throws weight behind inclusive cricket
Michael Clarke has said that he wants to see as many countries as possible participate in events such as the World Cup so that the game can spread far and wide.
“How the next World Cup is run is completely up to the ICC and I’m sure they’ll make the right decisions for that. My personal view is I love seeing as many people, as many countries playing in major tournaments as possible,” Clarke said. “I think it’s great for the sport. I think this is a wonderful opportunity today for us to play against Afghanistan, for both teams.
Clarke’s comments came after MS Dhoni had advocated that cricket should look beyond commercial factors to grow the game globally.
“I’m all about trying to grow the game as much as we possibly can,” Clarke said. “I think that’s a big part of our role as professional athletes: to try and grow the sport so once you leave the game you can sit back and look at how much the game has improved while you’ve been involved in it. As many boys and girls as possible playing cricket in any country in the world is what I would love to see, so the more opportunity these countries get in major tournaments… it can only be a positive for the game of cricket.”
Those two overs are sparks that will be forgotten, perhaps already have been. The big boys of Australia have all the big numbers – Warner 178, Smith 95, Glenn Maxwell 88. Fifty boundaries in fifty overs for a total of 417 – the highest in a World Cup.Sparks. That is what Afghanistan were all about in this game. You don’t compete against Australia with mere sparks of potential or brilliance, slipping into the average in between.Average. Shapoor Zadran’s first ball of the match was average. No doubt he and his fellow fast bowlers would have been looking forward to bowl on the WACA pitch. Shapoor ran in from his long run-up and dug it short. It was a neither-here-nor-there kind of short ball – the kind you bowl when you want to bowl a short ball, but are not too sure about it. Warner dismissed it for four with the ease of a batsman who has pulled such deliveries since he was a kid.Two balls into his next over, there was an appeal for a catch down the leg side, but replays showed it came off the pad. Shapoor came up with another weak short ball next. The absolute comfort with which Warner smashed it over midwicket was scary.You can be as tall as possible and have as long a run-up as possible. You can wear your headbands and war paint. You can be genuinely quick too – and the Afghan bowlers were, as Warner himself acknowledged later. But Warner’s strokes were saying that you cannot get away with being average against me. Or against Smith. Or Maxwell.Short was not the plan against Warner, as coach Andy Moles said later. The plan was to be too short. But Shapoor saw bounce and pace in the WACA pitch, and got carried away. He was not the first visiting fast bowler to have done so. He was not the first visiting fast bowler to have been taken apart by Warner.Sometime after enormous damage had already been done, Afghanistan remembered their plan: They had to keep it up to Warner. But it was too late. The only thing that would have stopped Warner was a yorker each ball, and even some of them would have gone over the rope. And although Afghanistan got a lot of them in, they also missed plenty. Warner and co helped themselves to a few more sixes.Shapoor followed Warner with a superb yorker in the batting Powerplay. Inside-edge for four. The attempted yorker became a full toss next ball. Walloped over square leg for six.After a 260 run partnership in 207 balls, came a man who is such a freak that he takes balls from outside leg stump and reverse sweeps them over point for boundaries. When he can easily hit the same ball for six over midwicket. He does that, too.Shapoor fired in a yorker to Maxwell. But the batsman was in such control that even before he had dug the ball out to vacant midwicket, he was already prepared to run. Legs wide apart and still primed to take off. Easy two by the time the fielder ran in from the deep.In between these two forces of nature was Smith, who was driving sixes off the quicks on the up.As Moles said, Afghanistan were outbullied by Australia. Their three fast bowlers may have terrorised lesser line-ups at a lower level, but this was the No. 1 ODI team in the world. You may have pace and the ability to bowl yorkers but it had to be combined with a lot more consistency, which Afghanistan were not able to summon. They had plenty of spark, though.
