Posts Tagged ‘Australia’

6 results.
Jan29

Tait quits cricket indefinitely

by wasim on January 29th, 2008 at 7:25 am
Posted In: Uncategorized

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Breaking News……….

AUSTRALIAN fast bowler Shaun Tait has quit cricket indefinitely, citing emotional and physical exhaustion.

Tait said his love for the game had diminished and he would not play cricket at any level for an indefinite period.

“This is a very difficult situation for me to be in at this time,” Tait said today in a statement.

“This is not an overnight decision but something that I’ve been struggling with for sometime.

“A break from professional cricket will hopefully give me a clear mind and a chance for my body to rest and recover.

“My love and enjoyment of the game is struggling due to these issues and if I continue to go on, it will be unfair on my team mates and support staff of both the Australian and South Australian cricket teams – and most importantly my family and close friends.”

It is important to note here that Tait was struggling with his speed after he was under strict watch by ICC for chucking allegations levelled against him by Newzealand, also it is interesting to note that during the current series against India he failed to bowl above 145Kph.

The World Cup star struggled in his one Test appearance of the summer – the third Test against India in Perth after a long battle to regain fitness following elbow surgery he was inducted in the Aussie team this summer as a pace bully but failed to make an impact on the series as he failed to co-op with the pressure of being under constant scrutiny by the ICC umpires.

After Adam Gilchrist’s surprise retirement this has been the second blow to the struggling world champions.

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Feb02

T/20 champs got run over by Australia

by wasim on February 2nd, 2008 at 4:20 am
Posted In: Cricket, Cricket India

INDIAN captain Mahendra Dhoni last night attempted to justify his team’s embarrassing nine-wicket mauling by Australia as a mere “practice match”, India fielded a Young team and were playing without their Big Four who performed so well in the tests their young players failed to match the intensity of the Aussies.

The match was played in front of a packed house the crowd was extremely disappointed when the T20 champ India was fired out for a paltry 74 in just 17.3 overs and 73 minutes.In reply, the Australians scorched to victory with 52 balls remaining to end a week of anger and frustration and claim the upper-hand in wake of Harbhajan Singh’s lucky escape for racial abuse.Harbhajan was widely heckled by spectators when he batted and bowled, and he was given a raspberry when he and Irfan Pathan collided while going for a catch to hand Michael Clarke a life.Australia was brilliantly led in the field and with the bat by Clarke, who was given the captaincy when Ricky Ponting failed a fitness test on his chronic back injury.Its been a demoralizing defeat for the Indian’s just a head of CB series, India might have to rethink their strategy of resting the big Four in the shorter version of the game as Yuvraj Singh and Dhoni are out of form and the relatively new recruits Uthappa, Gambhir, Karthik and Sharma failed to live up to the expectations if India has to fancy their chances in CB series they will have to play at least three out of the big four if they want to compete with Australia and Sri lanka.

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10 Comments
Feb28

A team with a vengeance

by wasim on February 28th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Posted In: Cricket, Cricket Australia

The late order resilience has always been the hall mark of great teams, probably this was the reason that Australia was desperately looking for a replacement for out of form and out of character Andrew Symonds.

In North and Johnson they have found two all rounders, if their yesterdays batting wasn’t a one time fluke then Australia is lucky to have found two all rounders, both players will add great depth, flexibility and resilience to their batting order.

Johnson in recent times have played several good knocks his average of 31 is also indicative of the fact that he is more than a capable batsman, Scoring 96 against a hostile South African pace battery is not an easy task especially when the runs were scored aggressively.

Australia have come to South Africa with a vengeance in mind, they are playing with a lot of aggression and have selected the right combination, they still have to find a quality spinner and Katich’s long term opening partner, but the rest of the problems have been resolved.

South Africa are reeling at 156/8 they need 115 more runs to avoid follow on. Johnson and Siddle has taken 3 wickets each, only a miracle can now save this match for South Africa.

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Apr13

A rare opportunity for Pakistan

by wasim on April 13th, 2009 at 4:13 am
Posted In: Cricket, Cricket Pakistan

Last three years have been very turbulent for Pakistan cricket, security problems in Pakistan led to the cancellation of many home series against the top teams in the world and the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore put an end to any hopes of hosting any foreign team in Pakistan for foreseeable future, a premature demise of Pakistan cricket was imminent.

Foreseeing this problem, and in order to keep Pakistan relevant in the world of cricket the administrators at PCB found a new home for Pakistan team in Dubai.

The ODi series between Pakistan and Australia will kick off of on 22nd April in Dubai, Pakistan will be playing Australia after four years, its a rare opportunity for Pakistan cricket team to re establish themselves as a force in world cricket.

Pakistan hasn’t played much international cricket in 2008 they will be rusty but the Australians are also struggling with their combination and by resting Ponting, Hussey and Johnson they have made the competition quite even. There is no excuse for the Pakistani team not to perform well against this Australian team as Pakistan will be playing on home like conditions, they do enjoy advantage in the spin department and their top batsmen are in good form, the only area of concern for Pakistan will be the form of their pace bowlers and fielding.

I do not foresee a whitewash by either side, both sides are missing some key players and are quite evenly matched, the only advantage Australia has over Pakistan is that they have played a lot of top level cricket against quality teams during the last year and their players will be battle hardened as opposed to the Pakistani players who will be quite rusty.

The inclusion of ICl players would have given Pakistan a clear advantage over Australia but PCB made a quick U-turn and discarded the three ICL players, which was the right decision in my opinion as these players preferred money over national duty in the past and they might do the same in future, these players should not be considered for national selection unless it is confirmed that they have revoked their ICL contracts.

There were no surprises in the selection done by Qadir & co, however the inclusion of Shoaib Akhtar and Yasir Arafat is objectionable, both the players failed miserably against Sri Lanka and I seriously doubt that they have improved their fitness and form during the last two months.

I hope that Sohail Tanvir has regained his form and fitness otherwise Pakistan will be in trouble.

Mohammad Aamer the 16 year old left arm fast bowler finally got selected for the practice match against Australia, I hope he does well in that match.

Intikhab Alam has hinted that he is going to rely predominantly on spin bowling because he feels that spinners can trouble the Australian batsmen, I don’t know if his assumption is based on facts or he is just trying to make us believe that he is actively participating in the planning for the series because before the Sri lankan series he made similar claims about using an all pace strategy against the Sri lankans which went horribly wrong as his bowlers were bowling all over the place and with out a plan, I hope this time his plan is real and he has actually worked with the players regarding it’s execution.

The forthcoming series against Australia will also be a major test of Younis Khan’s skill as a captain, although his personal performance against the Srilankans was examplary but as a captain on the field he looked short of ideas and creativity. All of his claims about the preparation of lively wickets for the SriLankan series were nothing but lies. He should understand the difference between playing stupid cricket and playing aggressive cricket,  taking 4 slips and asking your bowlers to pepper misdirected short balls is definitely not aggressive cricket, great captains make a plan to attack the weakness of the opposition and make sure that their players do not flaw in executing the plans. I hope that this time he has done his homework and he will show more control while executing his plans.

I have noticed another problem in Younis as a captain he is consisently showing lack of faith in young players and is mostly picking his team on seniority basis, part of this problem stems from the politics going on in the dressing room which is unfortunate but he will have to quickly identify the players who have passed their sell by date and should get rid of them.

My playing eleven for Pakistan will be as follows:

1-Salman Butt

2-Nasir Jamshed

3-Younis Khan

4-Misbah Ul Haq

5-Shoaib Malik

6- Shahid Afridi

7-Fawad Alam

8-Kamran Akmal

9-Sohail Tanvir

10-Umar Gul

11- Rao Iftikhar

Mohammad Aamer should be the 12th man.

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3 Comments
Dec20

A positive start by Pakistan

by wasim on December 20th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Posted In: Cricket, Cricket Pakistan

Pakistan started there Australian tour in a positive fashion. Salman Butt and Kamran Akmal both scored contrasting centuries in the tour opening three day practice match against Tasmania. The pitch reportedly had some juice in it for fast bowlers, both Imran Farhat and Salman Butt batted patiently and they managed to see off the new ball. They survived hostile bowling spells by the Tasmanian pacers led by Brett Geeves.

 Pakistan haven’t played a lot of test cricket in recent years as a result their batsmen were finding it difficult to adjust to this format they lacked the determination and the skill to bat through sessions but the three test series in NewZealand provided there batsmen a rare opportunity to adjust mentally and technique wise to the longer format. Almost all the batsmen showed some determination and got good starts but with the exception of Butt and Akmal nobody else could convert it into a big score but the good thing was everybody got good match practice and chipped in with a few runs.

Pakistan scored 437 runs and at the close of the second day Tasmania were 132/6.

Abdul Rauf, Mohammad Aamer and Saeed Ajmal took two wickets each, Umar Gul was the most expensive out of the Pakistani bowlers and also failed to take any wickets most probably he will get replaced by Sami or Rauf in the first test.

Ricky Ponting has said “ Australia’s bid for success would rest with keeping Pakistan on the back foot.

“As a package, if you look at their team they’ve got a number of exceptional players,” he said.

“If they stick together as a group and play well together as a team, they can be very dangerous.

“Our job is to make sure we don’t let them gel too much and combine too well.

The Aussie’s will try to target the key players in Pakistan team, they know which players are under pressure to perform and that is the only way they can not allow the team to Gel.

Australia is planning to tackle Pakistan with sheer pace and bounce, I don’t think that they will make the mistake to prepare tracks which offer too much movement as Asif and Kaneria has already demonstrated their capabilities in New Zealand, Australia will ensure that they neutralize these two bowlers. Perhaps this was the main reason that Pakistan recalled Sami they wanted a bowler who could consistently bowl in high 140′s.

This crop of Young Aussie pacers just rely on pace, bounce and seam movement they are not good at moving the old ball Pakistan’s best bet will be to make them tired and then go on attack. Pakistan has a more balanced bowling attack than Australia all they have to do is to lift up their fielding and batting.

After the Sulieman Benn incident the Aussies will be cautious and hopefully there will be no ugly incidents on the ground.

It will be an interesting series, Pak cricket fans should support their players through good and bad times during the whole series and should refrain from over criticism of players.

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6 Comments
Dec26

An Australian pitch made in Pakistan

by wasim on December 26th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Posted In: Cricket, Cricket Pakistan

After the first days play Australia are comfortably placed to score over 500 runs in their first innings. They won the toss and elected to bat on a surface which was probably imported from Faisalabad or Rajkot. There was no sideways movement, no pace and no bounce in it. Tailor made for a struggling Ponting who looked desperate to show the world that he has no problems with the short pitched stuff.

All the claims made by the curator that the pitch will offer pace and bounce was a load of crap, the first days play clearly showed that every time the Pakistani bowlers tried to bend their backs to bowl a bouncer the ball stayed below the shoulder height, this pitch was a Christmas present from CA to Ricky Ponting.

 

Pakistan received a big blow when Danish Kaneria was declared unfit for the match due to a finger injury before the match, but they shot themselves in the foot by dropping Gul and not considering Sami in place of Rauf.

Umar Gul and Sami would have extracted more pace and bounce than Rauf from this pitch and their ability to reverse the old ball could also have caused some problems for the batsmen.

Rauf looked ordinary on this pitch, he had no pace and extracted very little movement from the pitch he also erred with his length at times and was expensive reducing an already depleted

Pakistan bowling to just three bowlers.

Pakistan bowlers although controlled the flow of runs in the first four sessions but they never troubled the batsmen, Asif and Ajmal caused occasional problems for the batsmen but Ajmal bowled a bit too fast and failed to bowl a perfect line just outside off stump and at times he bowled too full. Three catches were dropped and two run out chances were missed, Misbah dropped the easiest of catches.

Mohammad Aamer will have to learn fast, he bowled too straight to cause any problems for the batsman he is just 17 and has a long way to go but he has to realize that his role is of a strike bowler and not of a stock bowler, he will have to learn how to set up a batsman and how to trouble batsmen by varying his angles and length on flat tracks.

Pakistan will have to change their strategy of going in a test with just four bowlers they will have to find a genuine all rounder, it is high time that they recall Afridi and Razzaq for the test matches. They got Sami as a back up bowler in anticipation of flat tracks but failed to include him in the squad, even Rana Naveed or Sohail Tanvir would have been a better option than Rauf, he is not the right bowler for this kind of a pitch.

All the Australian batsmen scored some runs, Watson and Katich missed their 100′s, Ponting scored an aggressive 57 and was looking to dominate the bowlers before he fell on a perfect out swinger from Asif. Hussey looked confident and was scoring runs quite easily.

Pakistan needs a few early wickets today if they have to curtail Australia below 500.

I think the Australian bowlers will hit the deck hard and will extract more pace and bounce from this pitch. But so far the pitch has shown that there is nothing in it for the bowlers, it’s a batting paradise, it will be interesting to see if Pakistani batsmen take advantage of this home like pitch or they again self destruct themselves. All it needs is a little determination and patience to bat long and score runs on this pitch.

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