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Pakistan and South Africa will battle tommorrw in the semifinal of the ICC T20 WC. Both teams have played one T20 match before in Pakistan was defeated, traditionally Pakistan team doesn’t perform well against South Africa therefore by default South Africa are favorites not only for the semifinals.

The pitch of Trent bridge is quite different than  of Oval, it’s a slow spinning track with not much in it for fast bowlers, Pakistan has four spinners in it’s line up and they play spin a lot better than South Africa apparently the advantage here should go to Pakistan but this South African team has all of it’s bases covered they have good spinners in their line up who have bowled well in this tournament so far and their batting line up is quite experienced moreover they have beaten India on this pitch in their last match so in reality their is no advantage. Infact if this ground doesn’t have any movement or bounce for the pacers then I am a bit concerned about Razzaq’s spell, he relies on movement and on a flat slow track he might get whacked.

Pakistan has several softspots which the south african team will try to attack.

In bowling  Aamer and Razzak are the only soft spot and South Africa will try to take both of them out early on to disrupt Younis Khan’s planning of the match Younis might have to bring in Umar Gul a bit earlier.

However if Razzaq and Aamer bowl intelligently and take two early wickets for Pakistan South Africa will come under pressure and they might fold as they did against Newzealand and India.

Although Pakistan’s batting line has a lot of depth but for some odd reason Pakistan have so far unable to pace their innings properly almost all of the batsmen except Younis have been reluctant to play big shots and score at a rapid pace. Misbah has really not gotten enough chance to bat and the uneccessary jingoistic and fickle minded criticism of Malik’s batting has created a lot of pressure on him.

Both of these players need to play fearlessly and their natural game, Malik should think that he is playing for Sialkot Stallions and Misbah should start off aggressively.

In batting Pakistan again has a soft spot at the top, Shahzaib Hassan although has scored twenty odd runs quickly in every match so far but looking at his technique and batting style I doubt that he will be successful against South Africa, if he gets out early Pakistan should send Razzak at #3. Razzak should know that Pakistan desperately need him to perform with he bat, I think he always take his bowling too seriously and forgets to focus on the batting, Pakistan’s chances largely depend on Razzak’s batting.

Younis Khan faced a lot of criticism for backing his senior players despite their poor performance now it’s time that these players play their game fearlessly and fully support their captain, it seems that the senior players want to score a slow twenty or thirty runs to keep their position in the team and then they try to open up but they have always lost their wicket in the process. The players should realize that it’s only a 20 over game and the goal is to maintain a higher run rate, with Fawad Alam in the line up Pakistan has enough depth in their batting even if we lose a wicket or two we still have enough batting to survive 20 overs. I would prefer a quick 20 @ strike rate of 150 or above over a run a ball 30.

Younis Khan will have to assign roles to his batsmen between those who are going to attack and those who are going to keep the strike rotating.

Another weak point  I noticed  in our opening pair was that although they play some attacking strokes but they play too many dot balls which brings the runrate down and render the boundaries ineffective.

The key for Pakistani batsmen is to play aggressively and fearlessly and everything will be fine. Batting first a score of 165 will be a winning total for Pakistan.

If Pakistan wants to bat with the same plan as they did so far in the tournament then they should include Rao Iftikhar in place of Fawad Alam because we haven’t used Fawad in any of the matches to his full potential it would be a better idea to reinforce the bowling then.

It’s a win or go home situation and Pakistan’s team knows very well that South African team attacks relentlessly you cannot go in a defesive frame of mind against such a team, Pakistan will have to play fearlessly.

A flying strat by the top three batsmen and a decent performace with the ball by Aamer and Razzak can win this match for Pakistan.

We haven’t seen the flare in Pakistan’s batting so far in this tournament, Misbah, Malik and Afridi should know that owe it to their fans.