Stani Army

Pakistan coach Waqar Younis has tried to reign in the enthusiasm felt by Pakistani cricket fans over their qualification from the group stages of the Cricket World Cup. Shahid Afridi’s men currently sit in second place in Group A behind New Zealand with five games played so far.

Free bets free bet placed in favour of Pakistan progressing beyond the group stage would have been scarce beforehand given their previous record at the tournament, but given their performances so far, they may now be backed to go all the way.

Pakistan sealed their passage through to the quarter finals with a seven wicket win over Zimbabwe earlier in the week with a game to spare, but the former fast bowler has moved to quell the excitement, and insists the team are not looking beyond their final group game against Australia on Saturday.

“Right now we are thinking of only Australia,” he said. “If you win that game, then your morale will be such that you won’t worry about any team you play.”

Australia will provide a stern test for Pakistan, and are currently unbeaten at the World Cup since the 1999 tournament, a sequence stretching back 34 games. While Pakistan have guaranteed their qualification from the group they could still finish anywhere in the top four which would mean a more difficult quarter final tie, and Waqar is wary of letting the standard of cricket drop.

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The ICC - Different rules for different teams

It has been reported that the ICC’s anti-corruption and security unit (ACSU) may be investigating Australia’s World Cup game against Zimbabwe after the Australians got off to a uncharacteristically slow start to their innings. When supposedly pressed on the matter, cricinfo reports that the “ICC said it did not comment on any ACSU matter, including whether or not a match had been investigated”. Really?

Back in September you may remember how there was a second round of allegations that followed the News of the World sting, that the Pakistan team were match-fixing. This time it was the Sun Newspaper, which had apparently handed over evidence to ACSU. The ICC’s response then was to go public on the matter, telling the media that Pakistan were being investigated by ACSU again, and remarkably, this was even before informing the PCB itself. So why the double standards? Why the hush-hush when it comes to the Australians but the indiscreet nonchalance when it came to the Pakistanis? Let’s remember, the Pakistan team, which did not include the suspended trio of Asif, Amir and Butt, were found completely innocent of the allegations in the end, despite having to cope with a trial by media due to the ICC’s blunder.

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Akmal: "Being dropped is not an easy thing to take". Yes, imagine what the ball feels like Kamran!

With the World Cup fast approaching, and Pakistan choosing to send in a early preliminary list of layers to the ICC for vetting, Kamran Akmal has decided to come out into the open about his frustrations at being ignored. Having asked the ICC if he is under any investigation and been given the green light, Akmal is surprised as to why he has not been brought back into the fold after being dropped for his poor performances in England.

The belief is that Akmal is being shunned by the PCB as there are suspicions that he has been involved in match fixing. With the PCB recently being told by the ICC to clean up their act, they may just be playing it safe by keeping Akmal away from the international side, even if there is no hard evidence he has been involved in fixing.

So why is there this cloud over Akmal? Suspicions first arose during the tour of Australia when Akmal dropped four catches behind the stumps in the 2nd Test, three of them off of Michael Hussey, who was Australia’s only hope left in the innings. Hussey managed a century, and carried his bat with the tail with Pakistan eventually losing by 36 runs. This led to Akmal being questioned by the PCB, and he was later dropped for the Twenty20s against England in Dubai.

When Pakistan flew to England, Akmal was sent a notice by the ICC seeking information about events related to the 2010 World Twenty20 held in the Caribbean, as the suspicion in regards to Akmal’s performances continued. On the same tour, he was dropped for the 2nd Test against England after a string of missed opportunities behind the stumps and poor batting scores.

He was also recently named in a video by fixer Mazhar Majeed as one of six Pakistan players that Majeed had on his side, ready to engage in fixing games

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Misbah Ul-Haq receiving the trophy for leading his side to a domestic title earlier this year. He comes with plenty of domestic captaincy experience

Though it seems that Misbah Ul-Haq has been appointed Pakistan’s Test captain for the two games in the UAE against South Africa more through circumstance than preference, it is the right appointment as far as Stani Army is concerned.

Upset at being dropped for the tour of England, Misbah’s argument was that he had a better average in all forms of the game than most of the touring party, and he had a case. The reasons for Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan’s axing were that the former had retired and the latter had still not apologised for some apparent disciplinary issue. The reason for Misbah’s axing was less obvious even though it was said that the team was looking to go in a new direction with younger players. The recall of the 36 year old Yousuf mid-series put paid to that excuse. Many argued that Misbah was out of form, but then which of the Pakistan batsmen had shown form in the series’ in New Zealand and Australia that had preceded? At least Misbah had been making runs in domestic cricket whilst the others continued to fail on the international stage.

When Younis Khan resigned as captain this time last year, we went through the four possible candidates for the job of captain and Misbah certainly looked as good as the rest if not better in our opinion. He seemed a clean member of the side (from corruption as oppose to drugs!…o.k, and drugs), intelligent and well-spoken. This is something that former Pakistan coach Geoff Lawson has mentioned recently, backing the choice of Misbah as captain. Lawson said that Misbah had the “best cricketing brain” in Pakistan, which is no small compliment

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'We're not dumb, we batted rubbish so that we could lose the Test early to give our bowlers a rest'

If just for the sake of our bowlers, then the PCB must react to the current batting situation even if it means sending out a call for Mohammed Yousuf, Younis Khan and maybe even Misbah Ul-Haq. The argument that we should persist with the youngsters would be a fair one in any other situation, but we need to get these youngsters out of the cauldron they are in because this is not helping them or our bowlers.

The longest our batsmen have occupied the crease thus far in England has been 90 overs. With only Asif and Aamer of the bowlers showing any form, and Aamer being just 18, there is a worryingly huge workload placed on the bowlers, in particular the aforementioned two.

Kamran Akmal: The ‘wicket-keeper batsman’
The other thing exacerbating the situation is the dropped catches and general fielding. It is as if the bowlers have to get the opposition batsman out twice for every one dismissal. The chief culprit in this is Kamran Akmal. I stated in my last post that enough was enough, that since Kamran is making the same mistakes and not showing any improvement, then he has to be dropped. The argument that we select him because of what he gives with the bat is a false one. If you look at his contributions with the bat

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I did mention a while back that this tour would be a defining one for three of our experienced batsmen that did not make the squads, namely Misbah, Yousuf and Younis. Well it seems the discussion about their exclusion will now be re-ignited after the current batting line up failed again, this time against England.

Whilst overhead conditions were favourable to the English bowlers, it was a good track and for the Pakistani top five to make a combined score of just 40, some fault must lie with them. Nasser Hussain said in the break that when he was captain, batsmen did have the tendency to come back with a resigned attitude after being dismissed in swinging conditions, as if to say ‘ Oh well it’s swinging, there was nothing we could do’. Yet he went on to say that that should not be an excuse because that is the true test of the skill of the batsman, whether he can negotiate the movement or not. It’s obvious the skill of our batsmen was lacking.

Whilst there have been some encouraging performances here and there, it has to be said that our batsmen have so far failed on the whole. In the four innings we had against Australia, our highest innings total was just 289. For a Test match that is simply not good enough

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With the Pakistan bowlers getting showered with compliments left right and center – many from those in the know such as Michael Holding and Paul Allott – the England Captain Paul Collingwood has interestingly expressed comments that would not exactly be in agreement with those expressed by the men above.

Confident or plain stupid?

Collingwood was quoted as saying: “I don’t want to go overboard on ‘these guys are the best thing since sliced bread’ – or Wasim Akram, or this, that and the other”, he went on: “I think they have got a lot of talent. But to say they’re the number one bowling attack in the world I would say was over the mark. They have come up in conditions recently where it’s done a fair bit”.

It’s interesting because it comes at around the same time that the Pakistan captain said in an interview to cricinfo that he believes that in Mohammed Aamer and Mohammed Asif, he has the best pace pair in the world. Add Umar Gul to the mix, who as statistics prove, is the best bowler in Twenty20, the form which is harshest on bowlers, then it’s not such a bad pace attack.

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Congratulations to all Stanis for the deserved victory over Australia in the second of the two-match MCC Spirit of Cricket Test series. Having required just 40 runs with 7 wickets in hand, if there was one team that could have lost it from here it was Pakistan, and funnily enough, if there was one team that could have won it from here then it was Australia. Whist Pakistan tried their best to do just that, Australia’s first innings collapse caught up with them and it proved too much of a deficit in the end.

The victorious, young Pakistan squad with their backroom staff enjoy the moment

Though Pakistan did lose the wickets of all their front-line batsmen, it was fitting that it was two bowlers there at the crease scoring the last 5 runs to take Pakistan home. Throughout the two Tests, it was the bowling department that consistently outperformed that of the Australian’s and kept Pakistan in the race.

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