10K GOLD HOOPS

A Pakistan with momentum is a beast that cannot be contained. England discovered that fact to their cost in 1992 at Melbourne, when Imran Khan's cornered tigers sprung at their throats to seize the country's first major global title. And now, a generation later but in a campaign of distinct and glorious parallels, Sri Lanka have also sampled the unstoppable alchemy that occurs when cricket's most emotional and temperamental participants find a way to meld their ambitions to their deeds.

It doesn't always end up this way. Two years ago against India, in the inaugural World Twenty20 final in Johannesburg, Pakistan blew their chance for glory when Misbah-ul-Haq choked on his emotions at the end of a stunning match-turning counterattack, and chose the wrong ball to flick over fine leg. And then, of course, there was Pakistan's last appearance in the 50-over World Cup final, against Australia right here at Lord's in 1999, when the conviction in the performance and the margin in the result - eight wickets - exactly mirrored today's effect and upshot.

In fact, it is a decade and a day since Pakistan's demolition at the hands of Australia, and only two players remain from that match. Abdul Razzaq bowled two overs that day for 13, having limped to 17 from 51 balls while batting at No. 3; Shahid Afridi flogged two fours in 16 balls, and wasn't called upon to put his legspin into practice. Ten years and a thousand memories later, Razzaq and Afridi rose to the needs of the hour and turned themselves into the game's critical performers. Like the identities of the teams in this poignant final, it was a detail that can only have been scripted by the fates.

"Me, Shahid and Razzaq, we were chatting with the guys: 'Please this time we will hold our nerves and make our final touch'," said Younis, who added how surprised he had been by the maturity of Afridi's batting. "He took singles," he said in admiration of a man who added calculation to his aggression, and paced the chase to perfection. Two lusty swipes into the stands thrilled a packed Lord's, but not half as much as the scruffy leg-bye with which the title was sealed. Rare is the Pakistan team that puts substance over style, but when it occurs, the overall effect is electrifying.

As for Razzaq, he had his own reasons to impress - his omission from the last World Twenty20 in South Africa was the catalyst for his defection to the ICL, which in turn led to his two-year exile from international cricket. He cut through the red tape last month, but only returned as a replacement for the injured Yasir Arafat last week. Nevertheless, he slipped effortlessly into his time-honoured utility role, this time as an under-rated old hand to balance the youthful aggression of Wasim Akram's acolyte, Mohammad Aamer. After nine deliveries of the final, old and young had claimed a pair of ducks between them. And those lead weights of expectation had been alchemised into gold.


Both the captain and his Man of the Match hail from the troubled North West Frontier Province, and Afridi himself from the Khyber Agency, the symbolic frontline of Pakistan's War on Terror. Chaos can seem at times to be embedded in the Pakistani DNA, but as both men showed in their performances in this tournament, it does not have to be this way







Younis has now stepped aside from Twenty20 cricket, much as Imran Khan bowed out on a high in 1992. For all his quiet insistence that this competition lacks the prestige of the 50-over World Cup, he knows that he and his players have achieved something wonderful, and every bit as lasting as the memories forged by Imran, Miandad, Wasim and Mushtaq, way back in the mists of time.

"I'm the second Khan winning a World Cup for Pakistan, so I'm very proud of my Khans," said Younis. "This is my dream. I dreamed all the time of lifting the World Cup. My thinking in all my career is that I will be remembered for a team like 1992. I was not in the Imran Khan team, and this is a dream come true. I'm really happy. Though this World Cup is Twenty20, at least we won our second World Cup. This is a gift to our whole nation."

He is not wrong. To get a sense of how much Pakistan needed this victory, you have to look beyond the bedlam in the stands at Lord's where a shimmer of bouncing green shirts gave a surface-level glimpse of the euphoria, and instead burrow deep into the parks and gullies of Karachi, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Peshawar, where a nation starved of joy has been given the timeliest succour. It is arguable, in fact, that there has been no more timely sporting victory since a newly unified South Africa won the Rugby World Cup back in 1995.

Where Francois Pienaar's Springboks drew a newly unified nation ever more tightly together, the achievement of Younis's men has been to help slow the fragmentation of a state that is rapidly being considered by the world at large to have failed. Both the captain and his Man of the

One-day cricket is all about scoring lots of runs. Usually. This clash between England and Australia only produced 412 of them, but it did produce a contest of massive intensity and excitement that, in the end, just went Australia's way as Michael Bevan and Andy Bichel put on an unbeaten 73 in 12 overs for the ninth wicket to get home with just two balls to spare.

It all started so well for England. Marcus Trescothick and Nick Knight put on 66 from 62 balls and the large English contingent in the crowd could not stop waving the flag of St George at St George's Park. Alas for them, their suspicion that this was too good to last proved to be as accurate as Bichel's bowling and the fall of four wickets inside three overs left the scorecard with an all too familiar look to English eyes.

Trescothick has been in dreadful form for most of the southern summer and there was more than a touch of desperation as he advanced down the pitch flailing at Glenn McGrath in the first over. However, McGrath twice uncharacteristically dropped short outside off stump in the same over and Trescothick punched them both to the backward point boundary to set the tempo for the early part of the innings.

Confidence surged back through Trescothick's body and with Knight playing in his one hundredth one-day international with an assured freedom, runs began to flow. McGrath was struggling to find the right length, while Brett Lee was bowling with easy athleticism on a pitch that did not really help him. Lee had to rely on generating his own pace - and he did - but that did not concern Trescothick who, in the fourth over, pulled him imperiously over long leg for six.

The fifty came up from 45 balls and the Australians looked rattled. It could not last. Bichel was brought into the attack to replace the expensive Lee and suddenly the normality of Anglo-Australian contests of modern times returned.

Bichel's fifth ball had Knight trying to steer a ball wide of off stump wider of the solitary slip, but Damien Martyn took a good catch to his left. Michael Vaughan successfully negotiated Bichel's next ball, but off the first of his next over he got the thinnest of edges and Gilchrist took a simple catch. Nasser Hussain entered, and departed five balls later when he got a perfect ball from Bichel that pinned back his off stump.

This was the time to consolidate, but Trescothick took half a step down the pitch to drive McGrath and edged firmly to Martyn at slip. England, from dizzy heights, had slumped into a trough from which, against these Australians, few sides escape.

Alec Stewart and Paul Collingwood did stem the haemorrhage of wickets for five overs while they added 13 runs before Bichel claimed his fourth wicket with a ball that was not his best. Collingwood went to slash it through the off side off the front foot, but he only succeeded in edging to Gilchrist and England were 87 for five in the 18th over.

After that clatter of wickets had left the innings in disarray, Stewart and Andrew Flintoff set about a rebuilding task that was vital if England were to even get close to a defendable total. It required all Stewart's experience and Flintoff's newly found responsibility to settle things down and they profited from the fact that Australian captain Ricky Ponting was forced to rest the immaculate Bichel and employ some lesser bowlers. That meant all the others on this day.

Andrew Symonds was identified as the man to attack once the batsmen had settled in. He went for 20 from his two overs as Stewart and Flintoff added 90 for the sixth wicket. It took them 25 overs to do so, but that did not matter in the context of the innings.

Bichel was resting during this restructuring, but he returned to end England's revival in decisive fashion. Flintoff went to swing him high on the leg side for six. He succeeded in hitting it high, but straight up in the air and Gilchrist ended a very valuable and thoughtful effort from Flintoff.

In Bichel's next over he bowled straight and Stewart did not play straight. It was a poor end to an important innings under pressure, while Ashley Giles completed Bichel's seven-wicket haul with a checked drive to mid-off where Bevan plucked the ball out of the air with his fingertips.

Andrew Caddick kept Craig White company to see out the final few balls of the innings but only 33 runs came from the final ten overs. Bichel's final figures were 10-0-20-7 and he thoroughly deserved them by keeping the ball pitched up, bowling straight and getting movement throughout.

Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist emulated England's start when they set out after England's total of 204 for eight in their 50 overs. Whereas it was Andy Bichel who destroyed England, it was Andy Caddick who made the breakthrough for England.

In the third over of the innings, he saw Hayden pulling only to send a catch high towards mid-on with Giles underneath it. Runs were still flowing but when Caddick dropped short to Gilchrist and he