sasherwani
Members
I think that since the departure of Jiyaala Butt, the cricket scene in Pakistan has improved a bit. Our recent wins against SL in neutral venues was quite impressive. Younis played a fine innings yesterday against BD and Hafeez, Afridi, Umar Akmal and Ajmal are also doing quite well.
Our next test is England which is going to be quite an important one.
What is your take?
siddiqi73
Member
Need to take out Taufiq Umar as Greame Swann will eat him alive on his first ball; has a very poor technique against spin. Asad Shafiq despite scoring a century yesterday still played a very uninspiring innings and is susceptible of the short ball and he would not be able to hold his fort against a 7 foot bowler in Chris Tremlett.
Other than that, the squad looks fine. They need to have one more solid fast bowler to backup Umar Gul as he can go for runs and our team should not bank upon him as a pace spearhead since he could be crap more often than not.
Beating Bangladesh is not a big achievement of current cricket, however England will be their big test.
Fingers crossed to our side
bsobaid
Member
Beating Bangladesh is no achievement.
I remember back in the day Pakistan used to play with Srilanka to win matches but then SL started kicking their backsides.
I always see a pattern whenever a new permenant captain/coach or management starts. There are always some wins in the beginning for a tournament or two or for a year max and then they start loosing games and then you start hearing fight for captaincy, discipline issues etc.
scandinavian
Member
Pakistan has done fine, but should be careful.
England gave India a drubbing at home, but got a drubbing in India....Dono ghar meiN sher :)
Anyways I still think that England is another kind of opponent. They have a very good team which can be lethal if they are allowed to click. How do we prevent them from clicking?
Bowling:
- Ensure that our spin attack is as good as it has been until now. Keep the trio Saeed, Hafeez and Abdur-Rehman
- Keep on using the same fast bowlers Gul, Junaid and Cheema. They have done fine on flat pitches.
Batting:
The solid stalwarts will be Yunis and Misbah. I think we can count them to take any pressure. They are both good and VERY experienced.
Keep on using some the youngster like:
Asad: though he is vulnerable - especially short bowling. Btw. how much is needed for a tall angraiz to bowl a short ball to Asad ;)
Azhar: Is doing fine. He also did well against England in the last test series in England.
We need to be vary of a couple of "loopholes", which are several players like.
Taufeeq: Will be struggling, but it's difficult to drop him since he has done well.
Umar Akmal: Kan be disastrous for both teams. Need to learn to think - IF it is possible. Otherwise I fear we have a mini kamikaze Afridi in the making.
No thanks players:
Shoaib Malik: Keep getting selected for his favors to PPP
Imran Farhat: I know he has done OK, but I just hate people to come in the team because of sifarash.
And the ever green issue of fielding :)
In the Pakistani team there is always room for improvement - no matter how well they do :)
Btw: I like the attitude of Misbah. He is a cool captain. Unfortunately he is almost over as player. How many years are left in him. He is 37 years. I hope Hafeez will be the next captain.
bsobaid
Member
Did anyone notice Pakistan hardly gets to play with Australia.
When was the last time the two countries played outside of world cup?
siddiqi73
Member
@Scand,
I tend to agree with your analysis (how often does that happen!!!) In your no thanks players list, you forgot to add another cricketer well actually calling him a cricketer is an insult and he is none other than Sohail "Wrong Footed" Sohail!! God, I see that person ever donning the greens again and I swear that I'll kill this guy.
And yes, Prof. Hafeez can surely take over the mantle from Misbah and Azhar Ali can be groomed to be a long term captain.
msohail83
Member
Batting sucks... they can't play in challenging conditions (not even Younus after all these years).
Azhar and Shafiq are good future prospects.
scandinavian
Member
@S73
Until further only cricket brings us close ;)
Maybe we will be closer in the future too when you (hopefully) realize that PTI is a good party (not angels). Now don't start a quarrel here ;) Let's continue with cricket (keep it issue based).
Re. Sohail. I agree to some extent. It's right that nothing seems right about his bowling action and not good to watch, but on the other hand he could be as annoying fr Pakistan opponents. I remember he did extremely well in IPL, but at a time when Butt didn't allow him into the team. Our cricket bosses don't understand how to groom players. Many of our players are very talented but know little theory about cricket. They need to have lecture about cricket.
expakistani
Member
Good to see pakistani team is getting better in playing cricket and not playing politics.
- Fixing scandal, contributed alot of our recent success, now before fixing something they will think about Asif, Amir and salman.
- Also, Jiyaala Butt's effort in putting dent on big players politics should be appreciated.
- Misbah's leadership on and off the field attitude is good even though sometime i feel like he is bit defensive in approach but safety first cant be a very bad option.
- Senior players like Afridi, YK, Saeed Ajmal and Umer Gul are really helping new guys... 2 yrs back they were all fighting with each other rather then opposing team.
- Waqar, Aaqib and now Mohsin khan have done good job.. sorting out technical issues. We need to have such coahing staff around this team as well as under 19/18s.
Real test would be against England, how they perform against World best test team. I would like to see one express bowler in team...someone like Shoaib Akhter ( hard to believe if there are non in pakistan) and one real leg break bowler... Dont think Kernia going to make it soon...but do we have next guy in line?
Also there is need of one Abdul Razaq type all round in test and ODIs.
Time to send Shoaib Malik back to Sailkot, he is just warming bench... why not take some youngster for learning trip then this use less guy.
Wicket keeper batsman? I am sure there is one better then Akmals.
bsobaid
Member
How come pakistan and australia hardly get to play together.
It has been a long while since the two teams last played.
I find it unusual.
expakistani
Member
Well normally Aussies and Pak play evrer 3-5 yrs. plus new ICC way is to put high ranking teams against each other more often...
i know u wanna kick Aussies A $$$ since they are down lately
heheheeh
msohail83
Member
Winning against weak teams doesn't make you better. Batting is still as brittle as ever. Nobody other than Azhar Ali (and maybe Asad shafiq) is capable of playing in challenging conditions.
zaln
Member
یہ سب قوم کی دعاؤں کی بدولت ہے
bsobaid
Member
yaa phir PAkistani team ne green shoes pehenna chor diay hein?
bsobaid
Member
mera dil chahta hai Australia India aur England ko Pakistan team buree tarah zaleel karr kay haraey, laikin yeh pounds kay pujari cricketers national pride ko bhi apni maa samajh kay baych daytay hein.
stingingnettle
Member
Zalaan;
"یہ سب قوم کی دعاؤں کی بدولت ہے"
I have got a better explanation;
The three crooks serving jail terms in England.
What do you think?
scandinavian
Member
The batting is certainly something to be worried about. We will depend heavily on the old stalwarts like Misbah and Younis. Shafiq has done well and so has Azhar Ali, but they need to convert fifties into truly big scores to cement authority on the pitch! Even if only Misbah and Younis click and the others can chip in with some sort of scores too, then England will have more than a good match, but I think the English know where they should fear Pakistan.......The bowling attack. Pakistan has once again a world class bowling attack and especially the spinners are never to be taken lightly. I am looking forward to see how Pakistan perform against the English. I hope they can surprise them from day one, then they will have a tough series since they also must have a poor series in mind from the Indian tour.
The will play 3 tests, 4 ODI's and 3 T20 matches from 17.th Jan-2012.....a lot of entertaining cricket-hopefully.
syedramiz
Member
i think is ok but Shoaib must be dropped permanently......
sultanalikhan
Member
The real caliber of Pakistan team will show against England in UAE....my fear is Pak batting will be exposed, fielding will maintain its trend, bowling will be up & down, match-fixing will be talk of the town, Mohsin Khan will lose his job, Ilyas will again select his son in-law, and all Pakistan will be scratching head as to why have we not won after coming so close?
In a nutshell, it will be the typical Pakistani cricket at its gossiping best in Dubai!!!
bsobaid
Member
Mohsin khan does not desrve to be a coach. He is an interim coach until areal coach is found.
You must log in to post.
