Pakistan is going to face Netherlands in a do-or-die match tomorrow (9 June) at Lord's, London in an important Group B match of twenty20 world cup 2009. Pakistan has lost their opening game to England last night by 48 runs. Naturally, they are now facing an elimination threat ahead of their last group match against Netherlands. The Dutch side caused a huge upset, when they outperformed host England in the first match and won the game by 4 wickets.
So, England now sits atop the point table with 2 points and the hosts have a very good run rate and it is pretty much certain that they are going into Super Eight. With 2 points, Netherlands secures the second spot with a plus run rate, while Pakistan takes the last place in the group with a negative run rate. That means, even a victory would not be enough for Pakistan to win a Super Eight spot. Pakistan has to outdo the Dutch by net run rate. On the other hand, Netherlands just need to ensure that they do not suffer a huge defeat to Pakistan tomorrow.
Well, there is no doubt, the task Pakistan has got to do is not easy in twenty20 cricket where making a big different is always very hard. So, Younis Khan and his boys need to be very determined and play at their top against Netherlands, if Pakistan wants to progress to the last eight of the tournament. However, Pakistan’s performance was not impressive at all against England following some poor shows in the warm up games.
Teams:-
Pakistan :- Kamran Akmal(w), Ahmed Shehzad, Younis Khan(c), Shoaib Malik, Misbah Ul-Haq, Shahid Afridi, Yasir Arafat, Sohail Tanvir, Umar Gul, Mohammad Aamer, Saeed Ajmal, Rao Iftikhar, Fawad Alam, Salman Butt, Shahzaib Hasan .
Netherlands :- Alexei Kervezee, Darron Reekers, Bas Zuiderent, Tom de Grooth, Peter Borren, Ryan ten Doeschate, Daan van Bunge, Edgar Schiferli, Jeroen Smits(w/c), Pieter Seelaar, Dirk Nannes, Mudassar Bukhari, Maurits Jonkman, Eric Szwarczynski, Ruud Nijma
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