The final round of IPL league matches is almost over, the tournament was a major success, cricket fans all over the world had plenty to cheer about their respective heroes but not so much for Pakistani Cricket fans.
10 Pakistani players featured in the tournament, but with the exception of Sohail Tanvir no body was able to perform consistently, ironically he is the most inexperienced of all the Pakistani players but while his senior team mates including the captain were warming the bench of their respective teams, Sohail Tanvir gave match after match winning performances.
He has played 9 matches and has taken 21 wickets @ 5.95 with an ave of 10. He is topping the bowling charts in all categories he has taken the highest # of wickets, he has the best bowling figures in a single match, his bowling ave of 10 is also the best, his econ rate 5.95 is only second to thornely who has bowled only 7 overs in the tournament. Sohail Tanvir has been the X factor for the Rajasthan Royals, In this tournament he is bowling like his hero Wasim Akram and has overcome his erratic line and now can swing the ball both ways. His senior Pakistani team mates after failing consistently have been warming the bench, the only other Pakistan player who has played 9 matches is Afridi who is averaging 11 with the bat and has taken 9 wickets in the tournament @ 7.62 with an average of 22.88. His team benched him after his failure with both bat and ball, he had only two good games as a bowler, he probably disapointment the Pakistani cricket fans the most.
Mohammed Hafeez played 8 matches for Kolkata Knight Riders after playing two good games in which Kolkata won he consistently failed with the bat and was not much used as a bowler there after.In 8 matches he scored a mere 64 runs a pathetic performance by a technically incorrect player. He is still holding the record of bowling the most economical spell in IPL in which he gave away only 8 runs in 4 overs against the Deccan Chargers.In an effort to defend his poor performance he made a statement that the senior players in Pakistan team who are selected automatically selected didn’t performed any better than him.
Shoaib Malik played 7 matches and batted in 5 innings only, he failed to hold his place in the Dehli team as he failed as a bowler and Dehli don’t need another batsman he was selected as an all rounder but wants to play as a batsman only, Dehli benched him when they realized he is not going to bowl, something to learn for the Pak selectors. In all fairness in his five outings he probably got only two chances where there were some overs left when he came on to the crease, his highest score was only 24 and is averaging a mere 13 in the tournament. He bowled only8.3 overs in 7 matches and took 2 wickets @10.
Asif also played 7 matches and has taken 7 wickets @ 9.42, he started the tournament nicely but then faded away he has been too expensive, now he is injured and is warming the bench.
Salman Butt has also played 7 matches, he scored 193 runs @ 27.57 with the highest score of 73, he warmed the Kolkata bench during the first round and was given a chance only when McCullum and Gayle left, several technical faults in his batting were highlighted in his batting, he is weak on the onside, and has no foot movement, he scores most of his runs on boundaries and fails to work the ball for singles, his SR was a problem, he gave a few good starts to his team but their was not much to cheer about his batting, he was another disappointment.
Misbah ul Haq also played 7 matches, he was benched initially for Kallis and Chanderpaul, but later on because of public hue & cry was given a chance to play, he was the biggest disappointment for Pak fans as he failed to capitalize on the chances he scored only 117 runs @19.5 with a highest score of 47. Its true that Rahul Dravid failed to use him properly and was treated unfairly for which the Royal Banglore team paid heavily. He is in the wrong team and should demand a trade.
Umar Gul played six matches, and took 12 wickets @ 8.17 with an ave of 15.33, he was benched when Shoaib Akhter arrived because after playing one good game he failed to take wickets and was too expensive,but after Shoaib got injured he played superbly and took wickets in all the matches he played and improved his average.
Kamran Akmal has played 4 matches and has scored 98 runs with an ave of 32.66 the highest by any Pakistani batsman, he has been warming the bench since the arrival of Smith, he had only one good outing with the bat scoring 53 runs, his performance has been average neither bad nor good.
Shoaib Akhtar played only three matches, the Rawalpindi Express started the tournament with a big noise but got derailed in the next match, in 3 matches he only bowled 7 overs took 5 wickets @ 7.71 and an average of 10.80. After playing three matches he quietly saw his team being knocked out of the race for semis while warming the bench.
Although Pakistani bowlers stood out, but batting remains a problem, the senior players have been exposed, Afridi and Malik they are selected in the team as all rounders one can’t bowl and the other can’t bat, Younis Khan has not been considered worthy to play even a single match, Misbah failed, Salman Butt and Kamran Akmal had average success but their performance was such that you would not like to count on, the problem is further compounded since Pakistan has already lost their bench strength to ICL , the selectors do not have any option but to again give automatic selection to these so called seniors for the upcoming Asia cup and Champions trophy.
A hint for the selectors,the youngest guy was the star amongst the bench warmers, so get rid of some of these so called seniors and inject some young players in the team.
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