Tremendous Victory by Pakistan in T20 World Cup

I really got amazed to see Afridi's perfomance. He proves again that he is match winning performer. Well done and thanks to Al-mighty ALLAH.

The South African juggernaut was brought to a screeching halt by Shahid Afridi who, with a little help from his team-mates, dumped tournament favourites out of the World Twenty20 and secured Pakistan's place in the final. Afridi put in an all-round performance of tremendous intensity, lifting Pakistan to a defendable total with an aggressive yet methodical half-century, before bowling a spell that left the South Africans winded at Trent Bridge.

The clinical South African side, who were unbeaten in the competition, were favourites going in to the semi-final and their bowlers fought admirably to restrict Pakistan to 149 when at one stage a total of 170 seemed on the cards. With the exception of Jacques Kallis, though, their batsmen failed to give the chase any sort of direction. They were suffocated by Afridi and Saeed Ajmal and their inability to score enough runs during the initial and middle overs left them with far too much to do against the pinpoint accuracy of Umar Gul's yorkers.

20 overs Pakistan 149 for 4 (Afridi 51, Malik 34) v South Africa

Shahid Afridi signals his aggressive intent, Pakistan v South Africa, ICC World Twenty20, 1st semi-final, Trent Bridge, June 18, 2009
Shahid Afridi made a methodical half-century, but South Africa fought back well to keep Pakistan down to a chaseable score.

Player/Officials: Shahid Afridi
Matches: Pakistan v South Africa at Nottingham
Series/Tournaments: ICC World Twenty20
Teams: Pakistan | South Africa

Each time Pakistan's batsmen accelerated and threatened to set a formidable target, South Africa's bowlers pulled the game back, a contest that made for riveting viewing at Trent Bridge. Kamran Akmal and Shahid Afridi played aggressively but South Africa's bowlers recovered ground by restricting the run-rate after their dismissals. The eventual total of 149 was one that Graeme Smith will be happy with, while Pakistan will feel they could have got a few more.

The game followed a strangely symmetric pattern. Pakistan dominated the first five overs, scoring 43, while South Africa fought back between overs five and ten to keep Pakistan to 68 for 2. Pakistan once again controlled the game between overs 11 and 15, reaching 120 for 3, but South Africa conceded only 29 off the last five overs.

Pakistan's early dominance was due to Akmal, who was intent on smashing the ball from the start. He cut Dale Steyn twice for four in the first over and lofted him cleanly over long-off in the third. In between, he crashed Wayne Parnell to the midwicket boundary and raced to 23 off 11 balls before top-edging a pull off Steyn to mid-on.

Pakistan had raced to 47 for 2 after six overs, with Afridi pulling Jacques Kallis twice through midwicket but South Africa then cut off the boundary supply. Afridi and Shoaib Malik didn't hit a boundary for 30 balls before Afridi slogged Roelof van der Merwe through midwicket. He moved on to cut loose against Johan Botha, making room to loft the offspinner thrice in a row to the cover boundary before unveiling a delectable late-cut to snatch 18 off the over. The 50-partnership had come up off 49 balls but Pakistan had begun to accelerate, with Afridi placing the ball into gaps consistently, plucking twos.

South Africa desperately needed Afridi's wicket and it was given to them by JP Duminy, who struck with his first ball. Afridi tried to slog sweep and skied the ball straight to AB de Villiers at midwicket who took a vital catch with ease. South Africa celebrated the wicket with more relief than joy.

Malik had played a more subdued, anchoring role until then, but began to step up, scoring his first boundary - a sweep off van der Merwe - off his 31st ball. He soon added another, hitting Duminy over extra cover, but eventually holed out to long-off.

Younis and Abdul Razzaq were two new batsmen at the crease and Parnell and Steyn bowled with extreme accuracy to deny them loose deliveries at the death. They could only pick off ones and twos and had to settle for 149, when 170 looked gettable at one stage.

By: George Binoy who is a senior sub-editor at http://www.Cricinfo.com

Good News: Razzaq to replace Yasir Arafat in Pakistan squad

The ICC has confirmed the event technical committee of the ICC World Twenty20 2009 has approved Abdul Razzaq as a replacement player for Yasir Arafat in Pakistan's squad for the tournament, which runs until 21 June at three venues - Lord's, The Oval and Trent Bridge.

The confirmation was conveyed to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on behalf of the event technical committee on Wednesday.

Razzaq takes over from Arafat after the latter was diagnosed with a hamstring injury. Having reviewed the medical reports, the technical committee agreed to his replacement in the squad.

Razzaq has been deemed eligible to take part in the tournament having terminated his contract with the Indian Cricket League and received a sanction from the PCB for his involvement in unofficial cricket.

Batting and fielding averages
Mat Inns NO Runs HS Ave BF SR 100 50 4s 6s Ct St
Tests 46 77 9 1946 134 28.61 4741 41.04 3 7 230 23 15 0
ODIs 231 198 49 4465 112 29.96 5584 79.96 2 22 333 103 31 0
T20Is 2 2 1 27 17* 27.00 22 122.72 0 0 5 0 0 0
First-class 113 177 27 5159 203* 34.39 8 27 32 0
List A 286 244 58 5620 112 30.21 2 30 43 0
Twenty20 26 24 3 633 109 30.14 429 147.55 1 3 65 27 5 0
Bowling averages
Mat Inns Balls Runs Wkts BBI BBM Ave Econ SR 4w 5w 10
Tests 46 76 7008 3694 100 5/35 7/155 36.94 3.16 70.0 4 1 0
ODIs 231 221 9797 7658 246 6/35 6/35 31.13 4.69 39.8 8 3 0
T20Is 2 2 36 58 3 3/30 3/30 19.33 9.66 12.0 0 0 0
First-class 113 18030 10493 328 7/51 31.99 3.49 54.9 11 2
List A 286 12497 10006 330 6/35 6/35 30.32 4.80 37.8 11 3 0
Twenty20 26 26 558 679 41 4/13 4/13 16.56 7.30 13.6 2 0 0

ICC Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat confirmed: "The PCB has advised the ICC it has imposed a sanction on Abdul Razzaq in accordance with the ICC Board resolution."

Pakistan's next match of the tournament is on Friday against Sri Lanka at Lord's beginning at 1330 (local time).

Man runs onto court in French Open final

PARIS (AP)—Stunned and shaken, Roger Federer stood on center court during the French Open final wondering if the intruder who had just run up to him posed a threat.

Luckily, he wasn’t, and the Swiss star went on to win the French Open and match Pete Sampras’ career record of 14 major titles.

“All of a sudden I heard the crowd, and I looked over and he jumped over the fence or something,” said Federer, who beat Robin Soderling of Sweden 6-1, 7-6 (1), 6-4 Sunday to complete a career Grand Slam with his first championship at Roland Garros. “That gave me a fright, just, like, seeing him so close right away.”

The on-court intruder leaped into the area of play early in the second set, getting through a section of photographers sitting in the front row and hopping over the small wall separating them from the red clay.

Federer, however, said he wasn’t worried when he first saw the man run toward him.

“The good thing is, like, it happened before so that’s why I guess I didn’t panic,” Federer said. “It happened in Wimbledon before when two guys ran out on the court, and once I think it was in Montreal when I lost to (Andy) Roddick when I was playing for my No. 1 ranking in the third set.”
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At Wimbledon in 2006, two men came on the court with rackets and balls, and one of them hit a shot, during Federer’s quarterfinal win over Mario Ancic.

The worst incident involving an on-court intruder came in 1993 when a man reached over a courtside railing in Hamburg, Germany, and stabbed top-ranked Monica Seles between the shoulder blades. Seles recovered and returned to tennis in 1995, and won the 1996 Australian Open.

On Sunday, the intruder was waving a Barcelona soccer team flag and ran toward Federer and tried to place a red hat on his head.

“Normally they always kind of look at me and go, ‘I’m so sorry I have to do this,’ because they have some sort of a reason for it,” Federer said. “This guy, I don’t know, he looked at me and I was not sure what he wanted. It seemed like he wanted to give me something. So I was actually OK, because I saw he wasn’t pulling for anything stupid.”

Federer pushed the intruder aside, and security guards ran onto the court to subdue the man, but he jumped over the net. A security guard from Soderling’s side of the court then ran out and tackled him. He was carried off the court by three security guards.

“It wasn’t really a nice thing to see,” Soderling said. “I think the security was at least as surprised as we were. But I know it’s very bad that things like this can happen.”

“I tried not to think about it too much,” he added.

Federer had won the first set and was leading 2-1 in the second when the man jumped onto the court. Federer lost that next game to love, but then won the next.

After the man was taken away, a security guard approached Federer to check if he was OK. The Swiss player smiled and nodded. A moment later, Federer turned to look up at his wife in the stands and then adjusted his headband.

“It definitely felt uncomfortable once he came close to me. Looking back, it definitely threw me out of my rhythm a little bit,” Federer said. “One game later, I thought that maybe I should have sat down and taken a minute or two to kind of reflect on what just happened. Was that real or what?

“But I don’t know. I mean, I wanted to play on and whatever, get over it. But it was a touch scary, yes.”

Police later said the man was jailed for questioning and could be charged with illegally entering a sports stadium. Police said the man claimed to be a fan of Federer.