yuppie wrote: Ball falling short in this pitch is no surprise at all. Happened to Pakistan when they batted as well. Slow pitch, going to happen.
Abbas when bowling to Khawaja earlier reminded me a lot of Shami v England this summer, where he yet continually did him like a kipper, but each time the ball missed the bat by half a millimeter. No joke, in one spell he must have done him a good 10 times. Abbas also bowled a few lovely cutters that Paine was completely bamboozled by, but didnt carry. The spinners had multiple bat pads or edges not carry, or go so close to the fielders. Probably a good 3 lbws at a guess that went against Pakistan on umpire call for pitching outside off, which when you consider the rules are "is it pitching" and the answer is "yeah, but only 49.9% of off stump", id say is unlucky ( the removal of umpires call margin on these should be considered, but a different story)..... Paine must have inside edged a few that nearly hit the stumps, in fact in one period of a bout 10 balls he was nearly bowled three times. Couple of direct hits would have lead to run outs, one direct hit was very close to being out.... I think Safraz missed two stumpings as well.
Id say the Aussies got a good amount of luck to be honest. Not sure I agree with some of the cricinfo reports, which seem to have Australia batting faultlessly all day. It was just one of those days for Pakistan, nothing went for them, but they did frequently create chances.