Rizwan lends steel to Pak like never before

Skipper Babar Azam will always be the class act but Pakistan now have a crisis man for all seasons

- Somshuvra Laha

KOLKATA: Runners are no longer permitted. But a batter may retire any time. Shrewd choice, given this is an ODI and not a T20, so there's always time to make up for a lull. Not that there was a chance of any. Saud Shakeel was purring along. And Iftikhar Ahmed takes little time to hit a T20 tempo, regardless of the format. Plus, you don't want to aggravate the cramp, not at a World Cup, not when the next match is against India. But this is Mohammad Rizwan, who prefers to smile through pain while back calculating a combative win.

"You don't want to give it away," said Rizwan minutes after shepherding Pakistan to victory with an unbeaten 131 at Hyderabad on Tuesday. "Because you know the bowling of Sri Lanka, they have decent bowlers. If I give the wicket at that moment, it's difficult for the new batsman who follows." Fair enough. But in a moving feast that was a matchwinning stand between Rizwan and Abdullah Shafique, it didn't quite register why Rizwan wasn't the first choice-like in T20Isopener in the first place and Shafique his wingman. There might be a Pakistani logic at work here, viewing one-dayers as a crunched version of Tests while the rest of the world treat it to be a 50-over avatar of T20.