Pakistan will face a do or die situation in it’s next two matches. Despite having a decent team Pakistan’s performance so far in the tournament has been dismal, lack of planning, extremely poor fielding, and unimaginative captaincy have brought them into a precarious situation they face sudden death in their next two matches.
Their pacers are not getting them early break throughs, they are losing too many wickets in the middle overs and giving away too many runs in the middle overs, so far Razzaq has been unable to lift Pakistan in the final overs.
To win the next two matches Pakistan will have to fix all of these problems to be at the top of their game.
1- They will have to include Rahman in the team to control runs in the middle overs.
2-They will have to shuffle the batting order. Afridi should change his batting number with Razzaq. Razzaq is a slow starter whereas Afridi can hit the ball from the very first he faces.
3- Both Sami and Asif have been ineffective so far, the choice between the two should only depend on the wicket. Both of them are experienced players, I fail to understand why Sami was unable to use the variety he employed in domestic T20 competitions he loses control completely once he gets hit. I was surprised that Asif couldn’t move a single ball.
Aamer will have to use more variety he was quite impressive against Australia but against England he didn’t caused any problems for the batsmen rarely used the bouncer, didn’t tried to move the ball away from the batsmen, didn’t bowled a single yorker. These were the variations where Umar Gul was extermely effective, Aamer has the potential but he will have to bowl with a big heart.
Even if Pakistan rectifies all the above problems they still won’t win a single match if they don’t lift their fielding up you CAN’T WIN A t20 MATCH IF YOU DROP 3-5 CATCHES EVERY MATCHAND MISS EASY RUN OUT CHANCES.
Afridi will have to show some faith in his bowlers his field placements were horrible he left too many gaps and had his worst fielder inside the circle, he persistently denied the field changes to his bowlers and made them bowl to the field placements he made. His bowling changes were questionable.
A couple of team meetings, a little bit of planning and a few changes can put Pakistan team back on the track but it seems Afridi is too stubborn to change.
Hopefully Pakistan will show a better performance against NewZealand and South Africa.
4-
HI
i am saad siddique and my favurote player for pakistan is shahid afridi and
pakistan zindabad
Whenever somebody said termed T20 as lottery cricket I always disagreed. But today I am convinced that it is lottery cricket, because Pakistan has qualified for the Semi finals after winning only two matches out of the five matches they played.
That is just ridiculous we didn’t deserved to be in the semi finals, but somehow we have made it to the semis, it was a complete miracle.
Am I happy for my team? Yes I am and I wish Afridi & CO good luck.
From here it’s just two matches, they have to completely forget how they reached into the semis and just focus on the next game.
Good thing is that Afridi has done almost all the experiments and is now comfortable with his team combination and knows which bowlers to trust, he will have to make a tough decision about Misbah Ul Haq and I think Pakistan team will be ok in the semis.
Good luck team Pakistan once again our prayers are with you.
Qamar
Afridi learned very late in the tournament, by playing Misbah he still made a mistake but today his bowling changes and field placements were upto the mark.
I think this win came too late we really should have won the game against New Zealand.
Afridi’s lack of confidence in his team caused us great harm but I hope he will learn from this tournament and in future lead the team in his natural style.
Yes he played responsibly today and both batted and bowled well.
Misbah should be dropped from the team if Pakistan reaches the semi finals and instead Fawad Alam should play at least he won’t waste as many deliveries as Misbah does and will contribute his 15-20 runs.
Why Hafeez is still batting at #3 is beyond my comprehension, I think that number belongs to Razzaq. Especially today when we had a long batting line up.
kp’s in england wasim..well das wt i heard. anyway ravi bopara will replace him and i hope england play with no pressure and crush newzealand
we won at last afridi palyed good and other than the collapse at the top we looked good lol. cumon england do us a favour and win:)
KP is available to play but I think England won’t play him if SA lost as in such a situation they will be through to the semis.
Again the team selection was not right, why they played Misbah when he clearly doesn’t want to play his shots the other day against NZ he made 3 from 14 balls today again he scored 3 off 7 balls and deprived Pakistan from scoring 160, he held all of his shots and didn’t even attempted to play according to the situation he didn’t even attempted to give strike to Razzaq, made sure that the score remains under 150.
Khalid Lateef and Haffez again showed that they are not good enough for international cricket.Hafeez disappointed me the most he was in good form but doesn’t have control over his nerves and takes too much pressure of playing at the big stage.
Pakistan still can win this one as SA will try their best to beat Pakistan with a big margin and might lose wickets in the process. All depends on how Afridi handles his bowlers and field placement.
Aamer will have to deliver today as if Pakistan can get Kallis and Smith early they will be in with a chance.
Akmal brothers lifted Pakistan to a decent total but Kamran Akmal played too slow initially.
Pakistan are bowling right now they have already removed Gibbs and Smith but the dangerman Kallis is still there.
They held the training camp to injure Umar Gul
None of them can play the short ball, they never included bowlers who could bowl the short ball in their own line up. For me Pakistan never had a realistic chance.
I am going to launch a campaign against Kamran Akmal and Misbah after this World cup these guys should be out of Pakistan cricket.
Maz,
I don’t mind us not taking the title but I wanted us to put up a honourable defence of it. I think our main issue is fielding obviously, and the fact we just dont have enough runs in the team, just look at our totals thus far. We also miss Gul.
Wasim,
Yes, I’m sure its been a bit of a wake up call to both Afridi and his supporters. He hasn’t shown his usual extrovert personality in his captaincy and I think he needs to. Maybe he is thinking about it too much and over-complicating his thinking. I’ve also noticed him getting nervous more, something which was not so apparent before. Look a him on the bench getting ready to come in and he looks a nervous wreck.
Crazy thing is that we still have a small chance of going through.
Maz
They deserved to lose and they lost miserably. I don’t want to see them in the semis due to any miracle.
Stani
They should have chased it in 17 overs. Clearly Misbah, Raazaq and Akmal brothers had other plans, and Afridi doesn’t have it in him to win a match sigle handedly.
Mujhe Captaan banoo….. Mujhe Captaan banno….. mein bohat aggressive hoon… Sala chotiya
He has no clue about leadership. This is a lesson for all those crapinfo journalists who relentlessly campaigned for his captaincy.
Pakistan squandered their last chance and are out of the world cup. They have one more match to play but that will be just formality.
It was the first time that Afridi got his bowling order and team combination right, The inclusion of Rahman gave the team great flexibility in the middle overs something which I have been saying all along after the first match, I wonder why the team management and the captain couldn’t figure it out until this match. After restricting Newzealand to just 133 Pakistan’s top order capitulated with the exception of Hafeez the rest of the top three just got out on ordinary deliveries and because of poor shot selection, a score of 133 they should have made it in 16-17 overs.
In my opinion Akmal brothers, Misbah, Afridi and Razzaq were the main culprits. Akmal brothers for such poor shots, Misbah for wasting one full over and then missing a straight one and Afridi for his poor shot and for not leading from the front and Razzaq for wasting too many deliveries and only relying on boundaries.
Salman Butt was the only one who showed some form and a desire to win but he to slacked a bit he should have scored a bit more faster.
Pakistan were never destined to win this one as the selection committee created a serious handicap by not selecting Shahzaib Hassan and not sending Shoaib Akhtar in place of Umar Gul and PCB crippled Pakistan team by banning Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Yousaf and Rana Naved.
Mohammad Yousaf is not selected for T20 because of his fielding did anybody saw any fielder better than him in the current team atleast he don’t drop sitters and could have supported Pakistan’s fragile batting line up.
Misbah should retire from all forms of cricket he can’t field and he can’t bat he didn’t showed an aounce of responsibility, he failed in NewZealand, he failed in Australia and he failed again in this tournament but for some odd reason he keeps getting selected.
Only one team wins and even a team like Australia can still fail to win this tournament but what disappoints me the most that PCB due to it’s poor management keeps on hampering the progress of Pakistan team.
That old bastard Ejaz Butt needs to immediately resign form his office and his entry should be banned in any PCB office for life.
Actually us getting through to the semis is much easier than I initially thought !
Additionally, in T20 cricket anything is possible !
Our title defence is still a mathematical possibility I optimistically say!
I totally agree that we dont deserve to go through though but my heart wants it to be
Maz, what was my last line? “I know we will go out, I just hope it’s not with more embarrassment.”…and thats exactly what we did. Disgraceful. Sometimes I don’t know why we support these clowns.
Firstly, that total should never have seen the 17th over let alone the last. Why they do not take simple singles I do not know. Secondly, if you need one to tie off the last ball, do not hit it in the air for goodness sake. I’m off to support England.
Stani
I completely agree with you, this team doesn’t deserve to win anything.
Maz
He can continue to change the players but if he won’t use them properly and won’t back his bowlers by giving them the field they want nothing is going to change.
According to Geo TV channel, Fawad Alam and Asif have been dropped for Sami and Abdur. Finally some “brains!” used by the PCB. This is great
team will be stronger I am sure.
If Pak bat first they have to get 170+
If they bowl first they should look to restrict the Kiwis to under 150
Our minimum expectation should be reaching the semis at least
Asif is not a T20 bowler, relies on seam movement and accuracy.
Stani, plz stop with the pessimistic attitide
And Afridi did bat at no3 in the last ICCT20WC
Wasim,
We do not deserve to win another game let alone the tournament. Our performances so far have been an embarrassment. You cannot expect to miss catches, run outs, bowl and bat as poorly as we did, and win a world cup.
The captaincy and body language of the coaches has been equally poor.
I’m sure Afridi was coming in much earlier to at in the previous world cup. Wasn’t it at three?
I would still go with Asif for Sami. He was swinging it a bit in the last game and I’m sure he’s itching to put his poor performance right.
Fawad needs to be replaced. He dropped a catch…or worse still, tipped it for six and the shot to which he got dismissed in the last game was awful. Moved in the crease and cramped himself. Watch where his front leg was!
I know we will go out, I just hope it’s not with more embarrassment.