Once again Pakistani batsmen failed to post a challenging total, Salman Butt and Younis Khan proved once again that they are just flat track bullies, they always fail on pitches which assist the bowlers, I have no doubt in my mind that Misbah’s sell by date has expired. Pakistan desperately needed a boost in their batting to win this match and to keep the series alive, they should have played Fawad Alam in place of Misbah but Younis Khan openly stated that he was not going to drop any senior due to political reasons.
If we look at this series it was not that the it was one sided all the matches were quite close, Pakistan needed a bit of out of the box thinking by their captain and a bit of leadership from the front, he failed in both, he mismanaged the power plays the batting power plays were kept for the tail enders in almost all the matches, he has failed to encourage the players and give them confidence, at times in the field he has looked listless and too defensive, in todays match he should have kept an aggressive field on the bowling of Afridi and Ajmal and should have blocked the singles but he kept 5 players on the boundary and left too many gaps in the field which took the pressure off from the Australians.
Younis was handed over the captaincy on the pretext that he will be aggressive and he will show some authority in his leadership it was also said that since he is a better player he will lead by example. Malik was criticized because his win ratio against top teams was not great but this is the second series Younis is going to lose.
All the assumptions of his supporters were wrong, he has completely failed as a player in this series, the worst thing he has displayed as a captain is his failure to support young players and his blind support for underperforming and out of form senior players, he failed to motivate his batsmen and failed to demand performance from his players he failed to give confidence to his batsmen, in the four matches Pakistan played so far the batting has struggled because the batsmen had no plan to pace the innings. The batsmen showed no footwork against the spinners and no positive intent against the pace bowlers at times it seemed as if the players were batting too selfishly and were un necessarily bogged down.
The Australians gave a disciplined performance but at no time in any match they completely dominated, the difference between the two teams was of leadership and mental toughness, this Australian bowling line up in my opinion is at best average nothing exceptional in it, our batsmen made it look like a world class bowling attack.
Pakistan’s current pace attack seemed toothless and one dimensional they struggled to move the ball both ways through out the series however the spinners did a great job. PCB should bring back the ICL players the introduction of Imran Nazir, Mohammad Yousaf, Rana Naveed and Razzak will not only strengthen the batting but will also strengthen the batting.
Saeed Ajmal has emerged as a world class bowler in this series, although he has been reported for illegal action but I am sure he will clear the Bio mechanic test as his action is cleaner than some other international bowlers.
Australia has won the series, I am sure Pakistan will win the last match. Australia are favorites to win the T20.
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