Freddie Freeman shoots for the moon as England are lost in Noman’s land

Pakistan v England, Rawalpindi — Day 3

Oct 26, 2024

A team triumph for Pakistan but for the man in the middle Noman Ali? Remarkable match figures of 9 wickets for 130 runs. Picture courtesy of and with thanks to **www.thehindu.com**

ENGLAND 267 and 112
PAKISTAN 344 and 37–1

Pakistan win by 9 wickets

The miracle of Rawalpindi didn’t materialise. David Blaine wasn’t available to perform any magic tricks. So shall we reverse the batting order, change sports and go back in time and instead revel in the Evil Empire of the New York Yankees having to tuck their tail between their legs and depart from Dodger Stadium a defeated team? Glorious wasn’t it? Did you miss it? Would you like me to paint you a Dodger blue picture as Freddie Freeman shot for the moon and landed in the stars of the World Series?

Game 1 of the affectionately self-titled season ending “Big Dance” of the baseball season was a humdinger. Ace starting pitchers Jack Flaherty for the home team LA Dodgers and Gerrit Cole for the visiting Yankees from New York dueled back and forth for 4 scoreless innings before the Dodgers ended the 5th inning leading 1–0 only to be losing 2–1 come the end of the 6th. Mookie Betts drove home the tying run in the bottom of the 8th inning in the shape of superstar Shohei Ohtani who was otherwise as quiet and disappointing as Yankees slugger Aaron Judge and at 2–2 after the regulation 9 innings, the music of the dance continued. Jazz Chisholm singled in the Yankees 10th inning then stole not one but two bases before being driven home by Anthony Volpe to restore the visitors lead once more and thus necessitating at least a scoring blow from the hosts for the game to continue into further extra innings. Gavin Lux walked before another of the Dodgers season heroes this year Tommy Edman singled and with runners in both scoring and game winning positions, Shohei Ohtani was miraculously caught by Alex Verdugo as he toppled and crashed into the crowd in left field. Mookie Betts was intentionally walked, thus loading the bases and nowhere for Freddie Freeman to go except the forever record books and World Series replays for all time as he launched Nestor Cortes’ first pitch to him far over the centre field wall and into the bleacher seats filled with Dodgers fans leaping for joy.

My American cousins call it a “no doubter” and Freddie knew it. He knew it from the very second the ball left his bat, a bat he now held aloft one handed as he bounded toward first base and by the time he was engulfed in fellow Dodgers on home plate a mad dog Englishman at 4.30am in the morning had only just begun to calm down.

Well, there was cricket to watch now after all, and a celebratory cup of tea was in order!

Sadly after the Lord Mayor’s Show there wasn’t much cricket on offer from a rather shabby and already defeated England who started Day 3 in Rawalpindi needing a minor miracle in the shape of 250 runs to force Pakistan into a competitive run chase and instead were still trailing on 1st innings by the time Harry Brook, Ben Stokes and Jamie Smith all arrived at the wicket before trudging disconsolately back to the Pavilion. England’s morning or more accurately the under two hours of batting whereby they lost their final 7 wickets for only 88 runs was rather summed up by their now forlorn looking captain Ben Stokes who couldn’t decide how to play a spinning ball from man of the moment Noman Ali and tried to, in the cricketing vernacular, “pad up” and not play a shot at all and was instead struck gently in, vernacular of the great game once more, the “box” protecting a gentleman’s most precious of all bodily equipment and to add insult to sporting injury, smack in front of his stumps for a (middle) leg before wicket decision he didn’t even challenge or send to the TV umpire. Ex England captain Michael Atherton described the incident on TV co-commentary as an “extraordinary moment” and it was, Stokes was out and a tumble of wickets and minutes later, his team joined him.

I have a raft of notes on the albeit brief and shortened day’s play: the Yorkshire pair of Joe Root and Harry Brook started confidently and brightly and top scored with 33 and 26 respectively. Jamie Smith recklessly threw his wicket away and whilst the bowlers (Atkinson, Ahmed, Leach and Bashir) combined for 31 runs between them, they too were spun to distraction by the Salvador Dali mustachio figure of Sajid Khan and veteran Noman Ali who combined for the faintly ridiculous match figures of 17 wickets for 327 runs.

At the time of writing, New Zealand are closing in on a second consecutive away victory in India and in exactly a month’s time Ben Stokes and his battered and bruised team will commence a 3 Test Match series down under and against a team heavily in form. Stokes, as ever, preached taking the positives even from defeat and whilst bemoaning the hectic schedule that saw many of his team playing different formats prior to this tour “you’ve got to practice but the pressures of Test match cricket can never be replicated”. His counterpart Shan Masood was naturally delighted with his team’s come from behind series win and was at pains to point out this series win “means a lot” and after dedicating the win to his team, the wider backroom group, management, board and selectors, summed up the mood beautifully be declaring “London buses they come together. The first win came after a long time and it is now backed up by a series win”.

See you in Christchurch in a month’s time?