Archive for ‘Cricket Pakistan’

223 results.
Feb03

Pak Wash is still a possibility

by wasim on February 3rd, 2012 at 5:15 pm
Posted In: Cricket, Cricket Pakistan

Sixteen wickets fell on the first day of the third test, both teams are having a dog fight out there, one trying to salvage some pride by winning the dead rubber the other desperately attempting a Pak wash. This series has highlighted nothing but the sorry state of batting in world cricket. Both teams have really good bowling attacks perhaps the best in the world, the wickets weren’t batting paradises they did supported the bowlers but they aren’t as venomous as the scoreline of both teams suggest. Pakistan is leading 2-0 in the series only because their bowling was better than the English team, their batsmen especially the top order have consistently failed in the series like their English counterparts, but as they say “nothing succeeds like success “and “victory hides all the flaws.”

Pakistan were all out for 99, and England lost their six top order wickets for 105, if Pakistan doesn’t concede more than 50 runs of lead they can still cause a Pak wash. Younis Khan has been a major disappointment in this series, which makes one wonder how is he going to justify his presence in the team after this series ends. He intends to play for another three years just on the basis of fitness but I don’t think that without form fitness counts for anything.

I would have liked to see Wahab Riaz and Umar Akmal play in this match but I guess the team management knows something which we don’t, so I will leave it at that.

Seems like both teams are interested in extra rest days and this match will also get finished within three days.

 

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Feb14

Get rid of the freeloaders

by wasim on February 14th, 2012 at 3:48 pm
Posted In: Cricket, Cricket Pakistan

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.

 

 

 

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Feb24

Captain aggressive Vs Captain defensive

by wasim on February 24th, 2012 at 8:29 am
Posted In: Cricket, Cricket Pakistan

England took its revenge and thrashed Pakistan in the Odi series 4-0. I expected England to win but never expected Pakistan to surrender so meekly. Currently England are a much better Odi team, their bowling combination is perhaps the best in the world, their batting is fine and has a lot of depth but the middle order is wobbly. After watching the haplessness of their batsmen against Pakistani spinners in the test series I hoped that Pakistani bowlers will make the Odi series  an even contest, but unfortunately the bowlers failed to perform.

Pakistan lost two matches by nine wickets after scoring 200+ runs four centuries were scored against them, it would be unfair to not mention the fielding lapses and the defensive field placement by Misbah Ul Haq  which left the struggling bowlers luckless and helpless.

It was painful to watch Afridi not bowling wicket to wicket, he is most successful when he slides the ball in from just outside off stump  but through out the series except for his first four overs he was consistently bowling half trackers and gave too much room and time to the batsman to play his shots. Ajmal for some odd reason wasn’t bowling his Doosra regularly like he did in the test series.Rahman and Hafeez were the two bowlers who bowled well for Pakistan and were quite economical.

All four Pakistani pacers looked like club bowlers during the Odi’s. A lot was expected from Wahab Riaz and Umar Gul but both failed miserably. Riaz not only had a major problem with the extras but also failed to keep  his line and length right. Gul  lost his ability to reverse swing and bowl those toe crushing yorkers in fact he didn’t bowl a single yorker through out the Odi series.

Before I talk about captaincy I want to talk about the selection of the team. If we look at the team combination in Odi’s, the batting was very similar to what we had in the test series, the inclusion of Afridi, Umar Akmal, Imran fahat and Malik didn’t made much of a difference as Farhat and Malik didn’t deserved to be in the team in the first place and Afridi and Akmal were as inconsistent as ever.

Apparently the tour selection committee never thought out the depth problem created by dropping Razzaq and Kamran Akmal.

Hammad Azam was suppose replace Razzaq but Misbah requested for Malik and poor Hammad never got a chance. Imran Farhat never deserved a chance in the first place especially when Hafeez was out of form, Pakistan needed an opener who could give the team a flying start, Awais Zia, Nasir jamshed, Ahmed Shahzad or Shazaib Hasan all four of them were in good form but were ignored by the selection committee for the Odi team. As a result there wasn’t an enforcer in the top order of our Odi batting lineup it consisted of only nudgers , blockers and pushers. As a result the team’s performance was flat totally devoid of any aggression.

Misbah has captained Pakistan team in 19 Odis out of which he has lost only 5 and 4 of those losses occurred in the current series. Just after losing one series the fickle minded Pakistani fans and politically-motivated ex-players are demanding him to step down as he is not aggressive enough.

Captain Aggressive ( Shahid Afridi) has led Pakistan in 34 Odis out of which he has won 18 and lost 14 and one had no result.

Captain defensive= 14:5  Captain Aggressive= 18:14

The win loss ratio above clearly suggests that Pakistan should focus on improving the team combination rather than changing the captain, its true that Misbah’s tactics are quite defensive but they have worked so far he needs to be a bit aggressive with the field placement which I am sure he will learn with every series but the aggression which the fans want to see and was missing in the series mainly comes from the individual players and not the captain, there weren’t many aggressive players in the team and those who were there didn’t had a good series because they were not in form.

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Pakistan have drawn the first blood by winning the first T20 match, finally they got the combination right, Both Awais Zia and Hammad Azam were in the team, unfortunately Hammad never got a chance to either bat or bowl but Pakistan should continue with this combination they now have the depth and variety in their batting.

The form of Afridi and Umar Akmal is a concern these two players never play according to the situation of the match but thats how they play and we shouldn’t ask them to change style, however Afridi’s bowling disgusted me as he has been consistently gifting boundaries in shape of Half trackers and wide and over pitched deliveries completely unlike him.

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