run rate went over 7 and half? What game were you watching? The required run rate barely touched 6.5? Riyad had a plan and he was stuck with it. Sure maybe it wasn't the best plan or maybe some other day it would have failed, but today it didn't and that's all it matters. You should try to understand the situation first. The plan was to make it till the batting power play comes and than hit out. When bresnan and Shehzad was bowling stump to stump if he tried anything fancy chances are he would gotten out. I don't think he was comfortable just giving the strike to shafi at first maybe he was afraid shafi would get out. But once Shafi started hit a few boundary both of them started to loosen up a bit. There was no need for Riyad to hit boundary because Shafi was doing it. It doesn't make sense for both of the batsman's to go for big shots considering we still had well over 5 overs left and England bowlers were practically handing out free runs with wides. And the other point is Riyad needed to survive out there, even if Shaif got out the match would still not be over, and he might have been able to close out the match with Rubel's help.
Bottom line is yes Shafi is the one that lead from the front, but he couldn't have done it without Riyad. And to me that deserves just a lot of credit
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