England, Pakistan and ‘one more match’
“One more match, one more match…”
The crowd at the old Amway Arena in Florida broke into this impromptu chant as Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson turned his banter-loaded speech at the 2008 WWE Hall of Fame ceremony towards his kayfabe adversary Stone Cold Steve Austin. The two legendary wrestlers had headlined a trilogy of Wrestlemanias at the peak of the Attitude Era and then went their separate ways in life, leaving the nostalgia romantics in a perpetual state of sequel craving.
A week ago in this T20 World Cup, the Dutch whipped up similar euphoria when they tripped up South Africa in Adelaide. They opened both a door that appeared to have slammed shut on Pakistan and also the possibility that this most exhilarating of tournaments could finish with its perfect main event. As it turned out, the clamour has indeed left us with one more match, but between two of the more nuanced T20 sides, who’ve just slugged it out over seven rounds across Karachi and Lahore. If that wasn’t enough of a warm-up, they also played another one in Brisbane.
Pakistan vs England is a dream final for those who don’t like formula, inhibition and sameness. It may have taken a while since they created this frenzied subset of a sport they invented, but the sport’s current 50-over champions have also moved the T20 needle. They can power-hit, they can hit to different pockets and they can do so till No.11. With the ball, they have left-arm angle, an off-spinner, a wrist spinner and another spinner that does both. At this point it would be easy to play the preview game of spot the difference or revisit the Pakistan are Pakistan narrative: that they can do all of this or none of this depending on the side of the bed they wake up from.
Beyond all the qudrat ka nizam, Babar Azam’s T20 team is a craftily-assembled side that was perhaps two balls away across two separate games from sweeping their group. They compensate for a relative lack of batting fire with added bowling oomph. And Australia’s World Cup has rewarded bowling superiority, with conditions creating a gritty contest between bat and ball. It has also dimmed another horror of UAE, 2021. Both Pakistan and England are still standing despite losing the toss in their respective semifinals. Their journeys to this point haven’t been blemish free. Both these teams slipped up at this very venue and the final might just well be distilled down to the cause of those reverses: Will Pakistan’s openers step it up again? And should England’s fail, can their untested middle-order shake off the rust?
On Saturday evening, as the sun began to slip behind the ominously grey clouds, Melbourne’s famous trams and trains clattered away every few minutes to the south of the MCG, carrying hundreds home to an evening of dreaming. Out in the centre, the ICC’s operations team ran simulations of the trophy presentation ceremony, wheeling in the stage of dreams in one of the game’s most iconic venues. All the while the groundsmen hung around by the boundary ropes, glancing skywards every once in a while.
“One more match, one more match…”
