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It was ironical that they were the last team to defeat the Australians in a World Cup match, way back in 1999. Twelve years later, it had to be them once again to stop the Aussie juggernaut that had been rolling on for 34 matches in a row. In the process, Australia captain Ricky Ponting suffered his first World Cup loss as captain and the blame will have to fall on his own team’s batting disorder, including Ponting himself.

Australia won the toss and decided to bat first, knowing that chasing under lights would be difficult for the opposition. They made the right decision but failed to back it up with enough runs on board.

Pakistan’s tidy bowling and fielding in the first half held the Aussies on back foot and chasing 176 a drama that unfolded needlessly they almost threw it away Air Jordan 18s before collecting their nerves and putting themselves back in the game. They almost threw it away before ending up winners by four wickets and nine overs to spare.

With Pakistan, you never know. That was the bottom line of all conversations when they began their chase and lost the first wicket with just 12 runs on Air Jordan 2 Retro the board. Brett Lee got opener Mohammad Hafeez perfectly.

He attempted to work a straight ball through midwicket, but a looping leading edge tempted Lee into a full on sprint out of his follow through, and he took a good catch. What immediately came to mind was if there was another Pak collapse in the waiting.

Despite what was an easy chase, Pakistan remained hell bent on committing the hara kiri. Loose shots from Asad Shafiq and Younis Khan and an absolutely useless slog from Shahid Afridi saw them dwindling at 155 6. The only wicket to fall of Air Jordan Fusion 5 some quality bowling remained that of Misbah ul Haq, getting caught behind to a beautiful Brett Lee delivery.

If not for some very fine batting from the talented Umar Akmal, who in fact stayed put till the very end, Pakistan looked set once again for a dose of self destruction and the partisan crowd at Premadasa spent the last half hour chewing their nails to victory.

Earlier in the afternoon, when Australia walked out to bat, Afridi’s men never allowed them to settle down. With the crowd singing ‘Paakiistaan’, Gul was the first to strike, removing Shane Watson. Ricky Ponting scored 19 Air Jordan Future before getting caught behind, Abdul Razzaq got to Michael Clarke’s stumps, Michael Hussey gave an easy catch at short mid wicket and Cameron White ran himself out in a horrible mix up.

Afridi’s only dismissal was the second last Aussie wicket that fell while it was Umar Gul, Abdur Rehman and Mohammad Hafeez who feasted on the very ordinary looking Australian line up.

But what the Pak skipper missed, in terms of wickets, he made up by way of some inspiring captaincy which clearly propped his teammates to bring the best out of them. He yelled at a player one minute, had his arm around his shoulder the next.

A misfield literally invited an abuse but a good stop equally invited a lavish praise. He was all over the park unlike Ricky Ponting who for Air Jordan 9s a change presented a reckless picture out in the middle.