Too many bad balls make for another bad World Cup day for Pakistan

The first over of the match, bowled by Shaheen Shah Afridi, was a good over. It was not the great over that we have come to expect from Afridi but it was a good over. He forced Pakistan to take a slightly ludicrous review off the first ball and tried to push for another very optimistic one off the fourth, but otherwise it went well. He wasn't straining too hard for that full-length ball that he hasn't been able to nail right of late. He showed signs he was willing to mix his length and off five balls he conceded just one run.

Off one though, the fifth ball of the over, he went a little too full. It shaped in a touch as well. No matter. This is the Chinnaswamy. The boundaries here are served Size Extra Small. The pitch is true. There may only have been four ODIs at the stadium in the last 10 years but we've all seen the IPL. We all know the feats of white-ball batting magic that are written here. Also, facing up was Mitch Marsh and there is no cleaner hitter of a cricket ball right now. With minimum fuss, he launched a six straight down the ground.

It was a very Mitch Marsh shot. The over read: four dots, one slight error, one maximum. In not quite the way Pakistan would have wanted, the tone was set for most of the rest of this innings.

Hasan Ali bowled eight dot balls in his first two overs. He began his second over from round the wicket though with such a floaty leg-stump half-volley it would've been rude had David Warner turned down the invite to scoop it over fine leg for six. He ended the over with a wide length ball that Marsh crunched through point. In between there were three dot balls.

Iftikhar Ahmed, called up far earlier than he might have been expecting and turning out to be a far better part-time option than anyone expected, bowled a decent eighth over. Good lengths, nice darts, some dots. Apart from the third ball which was a tiny bit short, a teensy bit wide, and bam, meet Warner's cut shot. He may be cuddlier now but that cut shot is still mean as hell.

Usama Mir came on for the 11th over and bowled a decent one. Mixed the flight, mixed the pace a little, got some turn, bowled three dot balls. He also bowled one that was a tiny bit short, a teensy bit wide and bam, meet the Warner cut. Again. It's still mean as hell.

This pattern would repeat itself time and time again in the first 35 overs of the Australia innings. Lots of dot balls, lots of boundary balls. Instinctively this feels like a very Pakistani malaise, especially of this attack: good enough bowlers to bowl good balls, but not enough of them for long enough. In Bengaluru though, this pattern formed in record-breaking extremis: Australia's total was the highest made by a team (since we began our ball-by-ball records in 2002) where 50% or more of the balls they faced were dot balls. Pakistan bowled 152 dot balls. But, they also conceded 10 sixes in the first 25 overs, the most they've conceded in the first half of an ODI innings. Two games ago, against Sri Lanka, Pakistan bowled 144 dot balls - 47.8% - and still conceded 345.

It's difficult to be too harsh on the bowling especially on a ground that is always very harsh on bowlers. Pakistan were playing here for the first time. They had clocked the smaller dimensions in training. They knew it would be tough. Their fast bowlers worked on hitting the right lengths in training, ideally somewhere around back of a good length and at the stumps always.

By all accounts those sessions went well, but in the heat of a World Cup game, it didn't translate. We're talking a fairly tiny area of this pitch you can hit and not be taken for runs off. And even then the line must be super tight: width is a sin, too straight a folly. In those first 20 overs, where much of the game was shaped, though Pakistan tried they didn't hit that spot often enough and the margins were cruel. When they hit back of a length (as recorded by our ball-by-ball data), they conceded at a strike rate of 84.61; when they hit length, they went at nearly 140. It's not a massive difference in terms of feet, but the costs of missing it is significant.

"We knew this ground is famous for a boundary festival," Pakistan's bowling coach Morne Morkel said later. "Upfront we leaked some soft boundaries - that was one of our key discussion points, to keep hitting the deck and keep the stumps in play. We know in India any bit of width you can throw your hands through the line. That was one area we lacked.

"If they hit or forced some good shots, we can live with that. But we couldn't string enough balls on the stumps, that's the learning we will take, the improvements we need to make. Those are the small margins. They will hit your good balls for four, but can we eliminate our bad balls and bowl less percentage of bad balls especially upfront?"

The one man - well, boy really - who was bringing that control this year, who was hitting the right lengths for the pitches he bowled on more consistently is, of course, not here. A number of sides are dealing with the absence of big names in this tournament, so Pakistan are hardly alone in that misfortune, nor can they afford to dwell on it.

But the loss of Naseem Shah, in a side where depth and the readiness of that depth has always felt thin and stretched, hits doubly on days like this. It has put a greater burden on Afridi (who at least confirmed here he can carry it) and asked Hasan and Haris Rauf to bowl outside their comfort zones.

"Naseem Shah is a quality bowler and if you look at his stats, the consistency he gave us with the new ball upfront was amazing," Morkel conceded. "The partnership he formed with Shaheen was fantastic. It's meant slightly new roles for Hasan Ali and Haris Rauf with the new ball in the powerplay.

"If you look at their stats, they are guys used to bowling outside the powerplay. They're learning, they're trying their heart out, but Naseem obviously is a big loss."

In the final reckoning, Pakistan's comeback in the field and then the chase until fairly deep into the game should provide some solace. This was - as Mir dropped an early, crucial, all-time dolly, as Rauf conceded 24 in his first over, as Warner took full toll of the chance, as Marsh celebrated his birthday with a hundred (he hit an Ashes hundred this summer for his brother Shaun's birthday too) - shaping up to be one of those operatically bad Pakistan days. In the end it was bad in just an underwhelming kind of way.

Except a bad day at a World Cup is a bad day no matter the scale and Pakistan cannot afford too many more now.