Well, we got as far as we deserved and were capable of. To be honest, may be even further. Would have been great if we could have pulled off the big upset against Australia, but we should be satisfied with what we did. Most Pakistanis didn't have high hopes from the start, and after the West Indies match, we were devastated. There obviously were many who believed we could go very far and some who thought even all the way. But they all knew deep inside that it would take miracles.
We shouldn't be disappointed in the team. We just weren't very strong, and that's okay. We have had brilliant teams in the past that weren't able to lift the cup, so we couldn't have expected too much from this group of mostly inexperienced youngsters. The seniors we had, didn't do much good either. We lacked experience and lacked confidence. We lacked temperament and we lacked talent.
It would have taken magical individual performances to have achieved the unthinkable. It would have taken multiple fiery spells like Wahab Riaz's against the Aussies. That was something out of the top drawer. A spell that doesn't look great on paper, but if you watched it live, you'd remember it for years to come. That 30 to 40 minute period was the only the second time in this world cup that the Pakistanis played like cornered tigers. The other was also nothing but our bowling performance against the Proteas in the group stage. It was also up there with one of the most exhilarating bowling spells of the tournament. Up there with Boult and Starc when they played each other.
That one against South Africa was an excellent cricket match that really got the country going and gave us some belief going into the quarters. It was a great morale boost for the whole nation, exactly what we needed before playing the mighty Aussies in the knockout stage. But as expected, we came up short, not without a fight though. As always, our fast bowlers attacked and did a lot of damage. But as always, our batting hadn't done quite enough and fielding disappointed. And that's okay. We just weren't good in those departments. Couldn't have had high expectations.
If you're dropping two catches a match, you don’t deserve to win. At the top level, a lot of the times the difference between winning and losing comes down to fielding because the batting and bowling are so well matched. And 9 out of 10 times Pakistan will lose that fielding match up.
We dropped Watson when he was being schooled by Wahab and we were on top of the kangaroos. With that one wicket, we would have had the game in our hands. It is hard to believe that one dropped catch meant that we didn't beat the Aussies and are not getting ready to play India in the semis. May be that's not the case, even with Watson's dismissal they would have chased it down, but imagine the possibilities, having Australia at 80 for 4. Then we missed out on getting Maxwell later.
It's okay though, we were never meant to beat them anyway. But it hurts because we almost had them. Even with our broken team, without making more runs than Guptill against West Indies or Gayle against Zimbabwe, we had them on the ropes.
One quality of the best athletes and teams is that they don't give you many chances, and once we gave Watson a second life, he made sure he made us pay. But to think that, that one catch was the only difference between us and the Aussies? That's when you feel like kicking yourself. Or Rahat instead.
Cricket, like any other sport, is a game of inches. Australia was just that one inch better knit than us, that one inch stronger, that one inch quicker, that one inch more confident, that one inch more prepared, that one inch more ready.
That one inch gap sounds very minute but it's not. That one inch is fought for. Countless things go into edging that one inch. Numerous things have to be done perfectly; numerous things have to fall in place. It all happens behind the scenes, and takes a lot of commitment from every single individual and organization involved from groundsman, coaches, physiotherapists to the managers; from the budget of the cricket board, the grass root level academies, the management of the board, to media support; from the domestic cricket system, the treatment of players, to the standard and maintenance of the pitches and grounds; from high quality and intensity practice every day, to the professionalism day in day out on and off the field. It takes all of this and so much more to achieve greatness, to be that one inch ahead of the rest.
On paper and based on track record, they should have been miles ahead of us. But at the top level, it's anybody's game. It depends on who shows up better on a given day. But when the match gets close, the pressure builds, the nerves come in to play; it's the team that has shed more sweat on the practice field, one that sheds less blood on the battlefield.