Pakistan axed star all rounder Abdul Razzaq and specialist opener Nasir Jamshed from it’s CT squad.
Nasir Jamshed was unimpressive in SriLanka his ommission is completely justified but to not select a specialist opener for a big tournament is criminal, the selection committee didn’t learned anything from the Srilankan tour and again committed the same mistake.
Apparently all of this has been done to accomodate Malik and Misbah. The chief selector Iqbal Qasim while defending his selection of certain players said “We decided not to do major experimentation with the team since the ICC Champions Trophy is a high-profile competition. As all other teams, including India, picked their experienced players, we also decided to retain almost the same team,’ he explained.
He also said that we cannot drop experienced players because they were going through a bad patch during one series.
The logic of giving one more chance to the experienced players is well taken but were the players really going through a bad patch or are they on a bad Path?
If it is a bad patch how come these players return to form in dead rubber matches when their arses are on line. There is a pattern in the performance of certain players and there is a pattern in the selection policy.
It is ironicalthat we are giving so much importance to seniority when those who performed the best in the Lankan series were young debutants?
I think the fact that every player played just one or two good innings in that series must have made the decision to axe Malik and Misbah from the team difficult for Iqbal Qasim as Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousaf, Fawad Alam, Misbah and Malik all of them managed to play one or two good innings it must have been hard for Iqbal Qasim to justify punishment for only two players.
But if Pakistan has to rebuild they will have to identify their core players and rebuild the team around those players, we cannot afford to drop Yousaf or Younis but if we make players like Misbah, Malik and Fawad permanent fixture in our team then we can’t expect better results. These players should only be included in the team if they perform well.
On the axing of Razzaq Iqbal Qasim said ” Razzaq fell in the all-rounders’ department his competition was with Naved.
‘We gave weight to Naved because he has some edge over Razzaq.
What the fuck? What edge? Naved might be a bit quicker but he always struggles with his length and often gets hammered, Razzaq is a clever bowler and bowls within his limitations he is better batsman than Malik and Rana there is no question about that. I think Iqbal Qasim made a huge judgement error here.
We are persisting with the underperformers of the T20 WC and the Lankan series but have axed our one player who played an instrumental role in our WC victory. Stupidity has no bounds.
A few other changes have also been made Misbah was demoted as Pakistan’s vice captain and Afridi has been appointed the VC in his place, good decision Afridi deserves it and hopefully it will further improve his performance. Message has been sent to Misbah he is now a regular player and is expendable.
Mohammad Asif is all set to make his return to international cricket after Rashid Latif gave a positive report on his fitness and form, I hope he learns from his mistakes and stays away from drugs. I still believe that PCB should have tested him in a domestic tournament before selecting him. But if he is in form Pakistan’s chances of performing well in CT will get a huge boost.
Iqbal Qasim & co selected Malik, Kamran Akmal and Imran Nazir as openers none of them can be regarded as a safe bet for the opening slot.
Pakistan: Younis Khan (capt), Imran Nazir, Misbah-ul-Haq, Umar Akmal, Shoaib Malik, Shahid Afridi, Naved-ul Hasan, Fawad Alam, Mohammad Yousuf, Kamran Akmal (wk), Umar Gul, Mohammad Aamer, Mohammad Asif, Rao Iftikhar, Saeed Ajmal.
Recent Comments