Gloriously, thrillingly, and with uncompromising ruthlessness Pakistan yesterday propelled themselves to Lord's.
On a sun-drenched Manchester day, and spurred on by the relentless cacophony from their flag-waving supporters, they overwhelmed New Zealand by nine wickets to reach Sunday's final, their second in the last three World Cups. Whichever side wins today's titanic struggle between Australia and South Africa will know they have another on their hands if the destiny of Wasim Akram is to be denied.
New Zealand have reached the semi-finals on four occasions and lost them all, the one prior to this being seven years ago when Pakistan stormed home thanks to Javed Miandad and the young Inzamam-ul-Haq and Moin Khan. Javed has gone now and here the other two took a back seat on the pavilion balcony as Saeed Anwar and Wajahatullah Wasti batted New Zealand into oblivion.
Requiring 242 to win on the same pitch on which, in similar circumstances little more than a week ago, they had been bowled out by India for 180, Anwar and Wasti gently at first, then thunderously as the will power began to drain from the New Zealanders, put together an opening partnership of 194. It was a record World Cup first-wicket stand beating the previous best of 186 between Gary Kirsten and Andrew Hudson of South Africa against Holland in Rawalpindi three years ago.
Wasti, who made hundreds in each innings of his second Test earlier this year, would have scored the maiden century of his infant one-day career had ambition not got the better of him. Attempting to hit Chris Cairns into Stretford he succeeded in reaching only the New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming, a perplexed man now at mid-off, and departed having made 84 from 123 balls, including a pulled six and 10 fours.
Opportunities such as this do not pass Anwar by, however. With seven scheduled overs remaining, he angled Nathan Astle's medium pace to third man for the single that took him to his second successive century of the competition, and the 17th of his 179match career.
He was to finish unbeaten on 113 - 148 balls, nine fours - his second-wicket stand with Ijaz Ahmed, batting at his disdainful best for 28 not out from 21 balls, worth 48. It was an alliance interrupted, with the end imminent, by a pitch invasion that took 10 minutes to sort out.
With no damage done, Anwar duly clumped Astle back over his head, and then completed the ceremonials by hitting the next ball over extra cover where Roger Twose, chasing a possible catch, encountered a human tidal wave coming the other way, thought better of it and made for the pavilion. In the end it was as simple as that.
In the final analysis it was the Kiwi batting that failed to deliver the goods. Once again it was left to the engine room of Fleming (41), Twose (46) and Cairns (44 not out) to haul their side to respectability and without doubt inflexibility of thinking played its part as out-of-form players retained places up the order.
But even a good shuffle of the pack might not have dealt any aces because Pakistan displayed a mighty bowling force in all its pomp. This has been a tournament of characters, Lance Klusener, Inzamam, Rahul Dravid, but none, not even Wasim Akram, has matched the charisma and sheer excitement of Shoaib Akhtar.
On paper, his contribution here looked modest -10-0-55-3 - but it brought him the man-of-thematch award. Figures alone do not tell the full tale however: of the 90 m.p.h. missile that cartwheeled Astle's leg stump before he could blink or of the 71 m.p.h. ball that sneaked through Chris Harris's defence. Above all though they do not tell how, from round the wicket, he slanted a yorker at 92 m.p.h. in towards the feet of the left-handed Fleming and uprooted his leg stump so clinically that the off bail was not even disturbed.
It was as close as anyone can have come to bowling the definitive ball to which there is no answer.
