Pakistan batting blitz crushes India
'Bollywood' beauties help to bring out the beast in one-day international star
The beauties brought out the beast in Pakistan's Yasir Arafat, whose brutal onslaught blasted defending champions India out of Cup contention in a sensational semi-final at the Cathay Pacific/Standard Chartered Hong Kong International Sixes yesterday.
Arafat slammed five consecutive sixes off left-arm spinner Sunil Joshi as Pakistan finished on a record 131. Sixty of those runs came off the first two overs. Arafat must have been inspired by the 'Bollywood' women who surrounded him while he was getting in some batting practice before the showdown against arch-rivals India.
'They are all after me,' joked Arafat after posing with a few of the nine women who kept the capacity crowd at the Kowloon Cricket Club entertained with their dancing to Hindi hit songs before the traditional rivals met.
India were after Arafat too, having identified him as one of the key batsmen in the Pakistani line-up. But the batsman was in spectacular form as he led the run blitz as Pakistan scored 131 in their five overs - a tournament record.
'It was quite an onslaught. I have never seen anything like that before. There was nothing much we could do. We lost the match in that second over,' said disappointed Indian captain Robin Singh, pointing to Arafat's sixes blitz against poor Joshi.
India went into bat facing the mammoth task of needing to hit a four off every ball to win the match. They finished on 83 to lose by a massive 48 runs.
'It was an amazing batting performance from Yasir [Arafat]. I have never seen anyone hit five sixes in a row. I was aiming for a total of 100 - to score 131 is just amazing,' said Pakistan captain Imran Nazir.
If Arafat led the way, he was followed almost six for six by skipper and fellow-opener Nazir, Hassan Raza and Tahir Mughal. Records tumbled. Apart from the total being the highest in the history of the competition, the Pakistani batsmen hit a record 17 sixes resulting in 102 runs coming off hits over the rope.
'I have never hit five sixes in a row before and it was a great feeling, especially scoring it against India,' laughed Arafat.
Unfortunately for Arafat, he had to retire after hitting Joshi out of the ground. In the first over of the innings, he had stolen a single off Sanjay Bangar, and added to his five sixes, he had totalled 31 - the score at which batsmen have to retire.
If India thought they could relax seeing the back of Arafat, they were mistaken. Hasan Raza continued the onslaught.
'They had just three batsmen, but unluckily for us, all three did well today,' said Singh.
'I have never seen hitting like this before in all the years of watching the Hong Kong Sixes. It was absolutely fantastic,' said an overawed John Cribbin, secretary of the Hong Kong Cricket Association.
The large crowd at the club would have agreed - even the large and silent contingent of Indian fans, including the millions watching on India's Channel 10 network.
