Pakistan’s team management before the start of the ODI series was aware of the fragility of their batting line up. To open with an out of form Mohammad Hafeez and a struggling Imran Farhat was already a gamble and was bound to put pressure on the middle order which is quite old lacks the fire power and is more suited to the test format the demand to score at a higher pace in the shorter format seems to stretch the limits of the players in the middle order.
But batting wasn’t Pakistan’s only problem, Umar Gul looked completely flat, he lacks accuracy with the new ball and his ability to reverse the old ball at will now seems to be a myth and he lost the ability to bowl those deadly yorkers almost a year ago, he is a different bowler these days still effective though but lacks the ammunition he once had. Hafeez bowled well and was quite economical but never looked like taking a wicket, if we had played Rahman instead of Malik he could have added more value to the team in real terms. Afridi and Riaz bowled good in patches. Afridi as usual started with a bang but bowled a couple of extremely expensive overs at the end of his first spell, he looked an entirely different bowler in those two overs had no control over his length or direction and gifted quite a few gifts to the batsmen. Wahab Riaz also leaked runs on the other end, he can’t bring the ball back into the right handers which makes him predictable, his problem gets compounded when he can’t control his wrist and sprays the ball all over the place, Misbah at that stage of the game ran out of options.
In order to fix the team combination the team management will have to get rid of the paper tigers like Malik and Farhat. Awais Zia has been great in the domestic tournaments and showed a lot of promise if he opens with Hafeez he can take the pressure to get a flying start off from Hafeez. Hammad Azam should get a chance instead of Malik that can enable Umar Akmal to bat at #3.
Finn bowled an excellent spell and Cook batted exceptionally well, England has the bowling to defend scores like 250 . Misbah will have to be a bit more proactive and aggressive on the field to curtail the opposition for less than par scores.
Recent Comments