Posts Tagged ‘Misbah’

4 results.
Jan23

Unfair selection is equvivalent to match fixing

by wasim on January 23rd, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Posted In: Cricket, Cricket Pakistan

It is still not clear if Shoaib Akhtar will be dropped in the final match or not, the chief selector has not been attending selection committee’s meetings he was also reported to come late in practice sessions, Qadir & co selected the team  on the basis of  seniority and not performance, they never gave Malik enough options in batting, he is at the mercy of these rogue senior players, and in my opinion such a selection is nothing short of match fixing. If Shoaib and Tanvir played in the last match I will have no doubt that PCB management didn’t wanted to win the series.

Malik openly criticized Shoaib Akhtar for not performing some sections of the media are now trying to use his statement to spur  a feud between Akhtar and Malik, instead of supporting Malik for his rightful and fair criticism they are more interested in creating a media circus, which in my opinion is pathetic. None of these journalists in their articles bothered to highlight and criticize the failure of Younis Khan, Afridi, and Misbah.  Both Younis and Afridi have delivered below par performances in T20 WC and the final match of the Odi series against SA and both players alongwith Shoaib Akhtar have been on the forefront to accuse Malik of conspiring against them, well their performance in key matches suggests otherwise.

Malik has been demanding the injection of fresh talent in the team he never enjoyed enough power during his tenure as a captain to impose his will on the selectors like Akram and Inzamam, if the selectors do not trust the team management then atleast they themselves have to do a fine job, in Past Wasim Bari and Salahudiin Salu were also accused of unfair selection, they persisited with players like Akmal, Rana, Sami and Hafeez for an unusually long period and as a result Pakistan’s performance remained inconsistent despite having one of the largest talent pool of players. The problem will continue in future also if the selection is not done on fair basis and the captain’s input is not seriously regarded.

I think Pakistan should look to replace these rogue senior players rather than the captain, there are enough players in the domestic circuit who can replace them, it seems as if the nation is stuck on some of these big stars and is willing to show no faith in new talent.

The deliberate selection of out of form players by the selection committee in my opinion is equivalent of match fixing.

People are sick and tired of Afridi’s brainless batting if he is just a bowler then he should get his place after a fair competition with other bowlers.

The senior players like Younis, Afridi, Misbah and Shoaib instead of blaming the captain and accusing him of conspiring against them should look at their own performance and try to justify their selection through their performance, a captain is helpless if he has rogue players under his command, the press should not unnecessarily support these rogue players, and should be fair in highlighting the problem.

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Dec27

Akmal brothers face a familiar task

by wasim on December 27th, 2009 at 9:21 pm
Posted In: Cricket, Cricket Pakistan

The second day completely belonged to Australia they dominated Pakistan team in all departments.

Pakistan’s bowlers failed to get early break throughs due to some below par bowling and defensive field placements, Mohammad Yousaf didn’t gave any close in fielders to Ajmal his field placements and Ajmal’s bowling was focused on the control of runs he kept on darting on the pads and bowling above 90k’s, it was painful to watch the ease with which Haurtiz was able to score his runs.

It was expected that Asif might provide an early break through with the second ball but he also failed, he never tried to bang the ball on the deck to extract seam movement he was only putting the ball just outside the off stump or on the off stump with no movement what so ever, the final whip of the wrist just before delivering the ball which enables him to get a bit of pace and slight movement off the pitch was missing through out the Aussie innings. Pakistan also missed the reverse swing ability of Umar Gul with the old ball his replacement Rauf was simply not good enough for test level cricket.

The team management again knowingly created a handicap in Pakistan’s bowling and batting, there was absolutely no justification in dropping Umar Gul and not considering Mohammad Sami for this match. Khurram Manzoor or Shoaib Malik would have been much better choice for the # 3 position, Faisal has demonstrated time and again that he can’t handle pace bowling.

This match is perhaps the last chance for Misbah Ul Haq to save his career. If he fails then there is no justification in playing with six specialist batsmen when the #6 batsman is consistently failing a genuine allrounder will be a better option.

The Australia bowlers bowled aggressively they either attacked the stumps or the rib cage and Watson did managed to reverse the bowl which raises the question why Asif was unable to move the old ball.

It’s highly unlikely that Misbah and Akmal brothers will be able to pull Pakistan out of the hole, but they do face a familiar task and often times they have managed to succeed a lot will depend on Umar Akmal’s performance.

Pakistan faces a Herculean task but the pitch is still quite easy to bat, Pakistan will have to bat from session to session they will have to kill as much time as they can to give themselves a chance in the second innings.

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Jan17

Does Afridi deserves to be retained as captain?

by wasim on January 17th, 2011 at 6:03 pm
Posted In: Cricket, Cricket Pakistan

PCB has announced Pakistan’s squad for the six match Odi series against New Zealand and the 30 probables for the world cup 2011. As usual the mindless public outcry has already begun. The jobless Ex-cricketers and Ex officials of PCB are issuing scathing statements aganist PCB and the selection committee over the decision to ignore Shoaib Malik and Mohammad Yousuf and over the appointment of Misbah Ul Haq as the Vice captain of the Odi team, the jingoistic media as usual is trying it’s best to protect Afridi and his captaincy. It’s a sad situation nobody seems to be sincere with Pakistan cricket, the think tank of Pakistan cricket is highly opportunistic and their statements only pressurize the board and add confusion in the minds of the fans and the decision makers.

The same people were criticizing the board for not axing Malik a year ago for creating cliques in the team and for under performance, but now when the selectors have dumped him, they want him back.  In last 20 Odi’s Malik has only one score above 40, he has consistently failed, his domestic performance is nothing new he always performs well in the domestic tournaments especially when the key players are on international tours. His form and seniority are irrelevant here, the main problem is that he hasn’t been able to satisfy the integrity committee about the source of a deposit of 90,000 pounds in one of his  bank accounts, which clearly puts him under investigation and that’s the main reason for ignoring him, everybody knows about this but would still try to use this situation to criticize the selection committee and the Board.

The second case is of Mohammad Yousaf, he was under investigation for the Sydney test but was later on cleared. In last 30 Odi’s he has only 3 scores above 50. There is definitely no question about the class of Yousaf but his recent performance has not been impressive and to be very honest most of his recent innings have been suspicious as he gets on to a good start and soon after he crosses 20′s or 30′s he throws away his wicket to a loose shot. He hasn’t been able to win matches for us as consistently as a player of his stature should have done. His fielding has always been a liability and on top of that he is currently unfit.

In India and Srilanka Pakistan would definitely be needing players who can play spin better, and both Malik and Yousaf are perhaps the best players of spin in Pakistan, their absence will certainly hurt Pakistan’s chances but only on paper as in reality if these players were going to perform the way they have done in their last 20 matches then Pakistan is better off with Misbah and Asad Shafiq.

The absence of these two players would only hurt Pakistan on paper on the field Asad and Misbah will perform better than these two.

The third case is of Captaincy, no captain has been announced for the world cup as of yet, Afridi has failed as a captain he has lost most of the Odi and T20 series Pakistan played under him his win loss ratio in Odis is 8: 15 and in t20′s it is 8 : 18. There is no plan in his leadership, the team plays instinctively and as a result we only win due to individual performances on many occasions his brainless aggression while batting was the main reason for our loss. Through out his 15 years of international career the sense of responsibility, match awareness, and the ability to read the situation and change gears accordingly has been missing, his fans have given him a license to be stupid and that is harming Pakistan cricket. His fans in his defense give an argument that he is just a bowler who can bat but that is not true he plays as an all rounder and does not bat according to his potential, his bowling performance has also declined which diminishes his value as a player in the team.

In a tournament like World cup every team needs a strong leader who can lead by example, handle difficult situations and can play according to the situation, Afridi lack in all these departments.

PCB is fully justified in contemplating a change of leadership in the team for the world cup, I wonder why there is so much criticism about Misbah’s nomination as a vice captain and a potential candidate for ODi captaincy, he is averaging 114 as a captain and has led a much weaker team than Afridi and produced better results, the team is performing like a team under him and average players are churning up better performance and on every occasion in the last two test series when the team was in trouble Misbah pulled it out of trouble because he batted responsibly and according to the situation.

In my opinion Pakistan stands no chance in the world cup under Afridi unless he changes his game drastically but that it is almost impossible for him to shed the school boy brand of cricket and start playing maturely, nothing predicts behavior like behavior. Pakistan would have won against England and SA had Afridi shown just a little bit of responsibility.

Misbah or Younis are the best candidates to lead the team in the world cup.

Cricket Pundits are not giving any importance to Pakistan team in the world cup but if the selectors selected the team on merit then Pakistan still has the ability to win the world cup. Everybody is declaring India, England and South Africa as favorites.

I think the race will be between India, Pakistan, SriLanka and South Africa.

Pakistan just lost to England and SA away from home, the result was 3-2 in both series, both losses were marginal and were affected by poor umpiring.This clearly shows Pakistan can beat any team and in home like conditions they will definitely dominate these teams.They have a few grey areas, players like Afridi, Razzaq and Umar Akmal can win matches single handedly but they do not deliver consistently and in the absence of consistency these players more than often cause a collapse. The bowling line still has some teeth but unless Umar Gul, Afridi and Ajmal regain their form of last two years, Pakistan won’t win the world cup they can reach the semis but in order to win the cup these three bowlers will have to be at the top of their form.

 The pundits always under estimate SriLanka they have lost only one series last year, they’ve got a good team and will enjoy home advantage.

I still believe that the defending champs have an outside chance, Australia has a good limited overs side but it will all depend on the form of Clarke and Ponting as Micheal Hussey is doubtful for the world cup due to severe injury, their pace attack with the return of Tait and Lee will become quite threatening but they have too many things to fix in the batting department. They will also have to overcome the demoralizing affect of recent defeats. England is a team which is on the rise but they rely heavily on their seamers who prefer home like seaming conditions and will find it extremely hard to adjust in subcontinetal conditions they do have a world class spinner but their recent record in India is miserable.They will also have to adjust from hard bouncy wickets to slow and low wickets of subcontinent.

India has home advantage but they have some serious issues with their bowling they have just named two pacers(Zaheer & Nehra) in their 15 men squad, it would be a blasphemy to call Munaf and Praveen as pacers. But despite their weakness in the bowling department India still will be the team to beat, just because of their batting, home grounds and spinners.

South African players have considerable experience to play in India and at the moment they have a very balanced team, their batting line up is in form their bowling has variety.

 

Pakistan’s squad for ODI series in NZ:

Pakistan ODI squad: Shahid Afridi (capt), Muhammad Hafeez, Kamran Akmal (wk), Younis Khan, Misbah-ul-Haq, Asad Shafiq, Umer Akmal, Abdul Razzaq, Abdul Rehman, Saeed Ajmal, Shoaib Akhtar, Umer Gul, Wahab Riaz, Sohail Tanveer, Tanveer Ahmed, Ahmed Shehzad

Pakistan’s 30 probables for the World cup 2011:

 Mohammad Hafeez, Ahmed Shehzad, Taufiq Umar, Nasir Jamshed, Mohammad Yousuf, Younis Khan, Misbah-ul-Haq, Umar Akmal, Azhar Ali, Asad Shafiq, Naveed Yasin, Kamran Akmal, Sarfraz Ahmed, Salman Ahmed, Shahid Afridi, Abdul Razzaq, Yasir Arafat, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Abdul Rehman, Saeed Ajmal, Yasir Shah, Zulfiqar Babar, Shoaib Akhtar, Umar Gul, Wahab Riaz, Sohail Tanveer, Tanvir Ahmed, Junaid Khan, Aizaz Cheema, Asad Ali.

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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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