Absolute brilliance! For a team that started their tournament disastrously with losses in the warmups against South Africa and India and then a first group loss to no-hopers England, this is an amazing turnaround. Today, they turned in a powerhouse performance against the favorites Sri Lankans.

The key for Pakistan was to get the Sri Lankan top order out quickly. They got the openers with the in-form Dilshan falling to his favorite shot for a duck. Then Jayawardene fell too, but Sangakkara slipped through. With Mathews giving him great support at the end, Sri Lanka posted a score which gave their bowlers something to defend. For most teams, 138 would have been a miserable score, but the Sri Lankan bowling is so rich in talent that you wondered if Pakistan let the match slip away from them in the final few overs. Perhaps someone else should have bowled the final over.

But all that seemed irrelevant as Pakistan went out to bat with a plan and executed it to perfection. They did not lose any wickets during the Powerplay, but maintained a steady runrate. No double wicket overs. After the openers left, Shahid Afridi and Shoaib Malik played one of the most responsible innings I have ever seen with Malik ensuring that Afridi kept his cool. As the Lankans slowly gave up hope, Afridi launched a few boundary hits to seal the deal. The perfect innings at the perfect time! While Afridi will keep the honors, let me say that Malik deserves almost as much credit for staying with Afridi and helping him put it together.

Tough luck for Sri Lanka, but Pakistan deserved to win today and Sri Lanka didn’t. Sri Lanka had a case of India-tactics-itis, where they tried to upset Pakistan with silly tactics (unnecessary batting promotions, heavy rotations of bowlers) that backfired on them. Sri Lanka did not believe that they could win and Pakistan, for all their unpredictably, had the confidence, playing straightforward cricket, taking no risks and trumping Sri Lanka.

This victory means so much for Pakistan. Unable to play any Test cricket in 2008, losing team members to ICL, getting tours cancelled, having the visiting Sri Lankan team being attacked by terrorist and starting off with poor performances in the Cup, they managed to turn it all around. The captain Younis Khan and the management deserves a lot of credit to keep the team spirits up and get everyone performing.

But, of course, Younis will be eating a few words tonight. Yes, those very words he said when they lost to England in the first match:

It won’t be a disaster even if we exit before the Super Eights It would be sad if we don’t make it, but I have never attached too much importance to Twenty20 cricket, as it is fun cricket. I mean it is more for entertainment, even if it is international cricket. It is all for the crowd. Twenty20 is all about fun. Everybody expects players to come out and entertain.