Pakistan vs Ireland Highlights - Super 8s

Pakistan Bat

Ireland Bat

Watch cricket highlights - Pakistan vs Ireland from the Super 8s of the 2009 T20 Cricket World Cup.

Scoreline: Pakistan 159/5 Kamran Akmal 57 (51), Shahid Afridi 24 (13) - Boyd Rankin 4-11-0
Ireland 120/9 Porterfield 40 (36) - Ajmal 4-19-4, Umar Gul 4-19-2, Aamer 4-19-1

The most interesting aspect of the Pakistan batting in the early part was the respect they gave the Irish bowling, without going bananas as they often can do. Afridi who’d played a responsible knock in the game vs NZ, looked to be getting back into some sort of batting form if not striking form. And that’s super for viewers considering Yuvraj’s exit yesterday. Think Hasan at the top and Razzaq to come is making the difference as Afridi no longer sees himself as the lone-hitter around and feels he can afford to work his way into form.

Ireland like against SL came up against a spin attack and pacers, their relative inexperience couldn’t really cope with. End of the Irish this year, but there are some players there, worth looking forward to whenever they next play international cricket. Until then, will miss their anthem played on a cricket field.

The big win by Pakistan today means their presence in the semis is no longer dependent on SL vs NZ tomorrow cos their NRR is better than SL now.