Watson impressed with Australia’s fighting spirit against Pakistan in T20 World Cup semifinal win
Aussies were on verge of defeat until Wade rescued them with some late big shots
Australia played fire with fire to get in to the finals of the T20 World Cup said former Aussie all-rounder Shane Watson who was very nervous for the first time as a commentator while watching the semifinal clash against Pakistan.
He felt Australia were not good with the ball - barring Adam Zampa and Pat Cummins - and would have liked Mitchell Starc to have had another over in the Powerplay when the ball was swinging but he gave credit to Glenn Maxwell and Mitchell Marsh for bowling the 4 overs between them for just 31 runs which was like gold on the belter of a track.
Good score
Watson added he had previously said in the pre match show that the wicket will be good and it turned out to be one and Pakistan put a good score of 176/4 and with no dew it was like 200 and in a knockout it was a match winning score. And when Shaheen Shah Afridi got the early wicket of Aaron Finch, Watson said both Warner and Marsh made sure to keep up with the net run rate and kept playing their shots. He was very impressed with the way Warner batted which put pressure back on the Pakistan bowlers.
But Watson said Shadab Khan bowled beautifully and made the batsman commit mistakes and got big wickets and had Australia at 96/5 and felt it would be difficult for Australia to chase down the target as he was not sure about the finishing skills of Matthew Wade specially.
Batting wicket
Watson felt sorry for Hassan Ali who he felt had a bad game but he added such things happen and bowlers can’t be blamed for the loss. It was the skills of Matthew Wade and Marcus Stoinis along with the beautiful batting wicket which saw Australia hold their nerve and seal the win.
He was proud of the way this Pakistan team played and felt they deserved to win but said they had to lose one game which sadly had to be the semifinal.