There was perhaps an inevitability to the hangover which followed
Scottish cricket’s celebration of its finest ever day as, this time, the world’s best team, asserted itself.
Different opposition and a different format of course, the aggressive approach that has long characterised Pakistani cricket perfectly suited to the T20 format as they were to demonstrate with bat and, in particular, their quick, slow, quick, quick, slow combination of high class pace bowling and guileful spinners who knew exactly what to do even after their hosts had made a superb start to their bid to chase down a target of 205.
Pakistan, having won the toss opted to bat first, and the home team had done a largely respectable job of containing them through the first 13 overs of their innings on what had been proven to be a very fast scoring ground when it had yielded 736 runs in 100 momentous overs as Scotland claimed their six-run win over England.
However they had taken just three wickets to that point, a loose cut by Ahmed Shezad, a top edge by Fakhar Zaman, both off Ali Evans bowling and a miscued reverse sweep by Hussain Talat off Richie Berrington providing catches for Berrington, wicket-keeper Matthew Cross and debutant Hamza Tahir respectively.
A surprise call-up, 22-year-old Tahir had otherwise endured a tough introduction to international cricket, his first ball glided through the vacant slip area for a boundary and his second driven for four more.
His two overs were despatched for 32 runs and while he had pulled things back slightly, only going for five runs in his third his tally conceded had already passed the 50 mark before the last ball of his final over was blasted for the second six of that over by Shoaib Malik.
He was by no means alone in getting the treatment though, Malik producing what was surely a unique innings in bringing up his own half century in fewer than half as many balls without a single four to his name, but with five sixes in all.
Before becoming, in the penultimate over, the last Pakistan batsman to be dismissed when his attempt to launch Evans over long off allowed Michael Leask to make up for having dropped Zaman earlier in the innings, Malik was accompanied in a 96-run fourth-wicket partnership by his captain.
Sarfraz Ahmed then went on to finish the job, top scoring with 89 not out and taking his team past the 200 mark by wrecking Safyaan Sharif’s previously excellent figures as he smashed his last four balls for 18 runs.
With figures of three for 23, Evans was the pick of the Scottish bowlers but Kyle Coetzer having constantly rotated them, seeking to reducing their opponents’ chances of lining them up, the final tally of 204 for four looked by no means impossible to reel in given the conditions and the way Scotland had performed two days earlier.
That impression was confirmed in the way Coetzer and George Munsey went about their business, the latter reverse sweeping Mohammed Nawaz for six off the third ball of the first over and the openers bringing up the 50 in the fifth over, an over earlier than their opponents with two wickets down.
When Munsey got a thin nick to the wicket-keeper with the score on 53 however, the visitors saw their chance to pounce and the match changed at that point. Richie Berrington struggled to three off seven balls before Shadab Khan beat him and when Coetzer was caught at long on off the last ball of the next over it felt as if too much was being asked of Sunday’s hero Calum MacLeod.
He, too, never really got going and the match was lost in that middle period, the second 50 taking almost twice as long as the first to be registered, coming up in the 14th over.
Having replaced MacLeod when he was trapped LBW by Shadab, Michael Leask took the chance in the closing stages to offer a reminder of why his ability to strike the ball had won him a man-of-the-match award in a losing cause against England four years ago and while his 38 off 24 balls, with three fours and two sixes, proved too little much too late to influence the outcome, he brought an element of respectability to the final margin in getting his side past the 150 mark, the innings closing on 156 for six with the Scots still 48 runs adrift.
That the world-class Mohammed Amir produced by far the poorest figures among the six Pakistani bowlers used only served to demonstrate their collective quality, Shadab and Hassan taking two wickets apiece, but Nawaz proving the most economical in conceding just 22 runs in four overs.
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