Stani Army

Shoaib Akhtar - The ultimate fast bowler

Today came the much expected announcement that Shoaib Akhtar would be retiring from cricket at the end of the World Cup. Before the tournament in the sub-continent, we mentioned on Stani Army that should Shoaib play any significant role in Pakistan’s campaign, it may lead him to decide to call it a day and go out of the game on a relative high. Today Shoaib took the step and made the emotional announcement to a packed media room.

Whilst it would be easy to concentrate on Shaoib’s run-ins with the law, it would be unfair to do so at this moment. Since early 2010, you could see a contriteness and maturity come over him, but sadly, it had only now come when his body was gone. Despite all his misdemeanors, he still provided cricket fans with box office entertainment and brought undescribable joy to millions of Pakistan fans. When he played, he was the envy of every supporter of every opposition team Pakistan faced, yet at the same time, was respected by these same opposition supporters for his unrivalled brilliance.

Not only did he have exceptional pace, but he also exhibited cricketing intelligence that made him stand out from the other out-and-out fast bowlers of his era. Like the design of the modern sports car, even when standing still Shoaib looked fast. With a long and aggressive run up, the Rawalpindi express charging in at full pelt was a sight to behold, as he made the best batsmen in the world look like tail-enders. Cricket is generally known to be a batsmen’s game, yet when Shoaib was bowling, it was a bowlers game.

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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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Whether he is or isn’t is a separate issue, but should Cricinfo really be carrying comments like this on their twitter feed on every page of their site, homepage included? But I guess Pakistan bashing has become the norm on Cricinfo since the horrific attack on the Sri Lankan team bus, the match officials and the forgotten Pakistani police officers – 6 of whom lost their lives along with two civilians – back in 2009.

The offending tweet on Premachandran's twitter page, was carried on the Cricinfo site via their 'World Cup on Twitter' feed

For some reason, the Indian writers on Cricinfo have a strange fascination with Pakistan cricket. In the past it’s been the likes of Sidarth Monga and Samit Chopra, and this time it was Dileep Premachandran on his twitter feed. Premachandran writes for Cricinfo and should be well aware of his position. He also knows full well that his comments are going onto the main site so the excuse that it’s his personal twitter page doesn’t quite wash.

Not very professional for the largest cricket website out there to be publishing personal insults directed at players by their writers.

Akmal was dope tested before the World Cup. Unfortunately they tested for the wrong kind of dope

Pakistan’s unbeaten record at the World up came to an end with an almighty crash today, as they were put to the sword by Ross Taylor.

In all honesty, Pakistan followers would have known that there was a performance like this just around the corner, and on closer inspection, this unbeaten run wasn’t as special as it was being made out to be anyway. Two of the three victories came against minnows, in games that were not as comfortable as they should have been. The only real decent victory was against Sri Lanka, and one good game is no winning run. Certainly this false sense of things going well may be the reason why they have failed to make the necessary changes in team personnel.

Chief architect in today’s defeat was wicket-keeper Kamran Akmal who dropped three catches – two off Ross Taylor, when he was on 0 and 4 respectively. Taylor went on to make an unbeaten 131, helping New Zealand make 102 runs off the final 5 overs.

Many of those that have called for Kamran to be axed must be banging their heads against a wall right now. Had he been a South American footballer, his mistakes would have seen him go into hiding in fear of his life. The captain and coach need to take the decision and take the gloves of Kamran for the rest of the tournament, even if they still play him as a batsman or, they should drop him outright. As a friend of mine once said, maybe it’s time to drop Kamran just so he knows how the ball feels.

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There was concern going into the World Cup about which two bowlers would take the new ball for Pakistan. And after the first game against minnows Kenya, the issue remains with Abdul Razzaq given the new ball with Shoaib Akhter. Razzaq’s timid pace is no more than adequate in friendly seam conditions such as in England and Australia, so on the sub-continent tracks, opening bowling with him is akin to giving the opposition batsmen practice deliveries to get themselves set. Against the major nations, he will set the whole team back. The dilemma is that Razzaq is primarily there for his batting, being one of international cricket’s most destructive late hitters. And it is because of his batting, that it will be very difficult to drop him from the side, even if the captain decides not to bowl him up front.

So who is the alternative option to replace Razzaq as Akhter’s opening bowling partner? Since Umar Gul has established himself as an old ball master, using him to open may see him become ineffective up front, and will also mean he has less overs to do what he’s good at nearer the end of the innings, the period where he is Pakistan’s main pace option. That leaves Wahab Riaz, the man that did not make the side for the first game against Kenya. To get Wahab in, someone has to obviously make way out of the side, but who?

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Pakistan got their World Cup campaign successfully underway today as they dominated a poor Kenya side to win by 205 runs. Shahid Afridi starred with the ball, taking 5 wickets for just 16 runs, recording the best ever figures by a Pakistan bowler at the World Cup.

Earlier in the week Afridi promised to do all he could to bring the World Cup trophy home after Pakistan were banned from hosting the tournament alongside India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh following the terrorist attacks of 2009, and he looked to make good on his promise with an impressive bowling performance.

Bigfreebet will have installed Pakistan as clear favourites, but their opponents were poorer than expected and sent down a joint record number of wide balls, unenviably matching the 37 the West Indies bowled in the 1991 tournament.

The Kenyans had begun the game well, and restricted a Pakistan batting attack looking to take advantage of their lesser opponents. Two wickets down with just 12 runs on the board, Kenya looked to replicate the success of the Netherlands against England yesterday by putting pressure on their esteemed opponents.

But the Pakistan middle-order came good as they accelerated through the innings, moving from 129-3 off 28 overs to an imposing 317-7; a figure which always looked out of Kenya’s reach

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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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Strangely, there was a chance that Pakistan, the World Champions, could have been out of the tournament just 24 hours into their defence. But a relatively comfortable win against Bangladesh has erased that fear. Barring an unexpected win for Bangladesh over Australia, Pakistan can now look forward to the super-eight stages of the competition but with a lot of improvements to make.

Though the openers did very well against Bangladesh, they became unstuck against Australia, who look like a force to be reckoned with having got their selection right this time around. Salman Butt played a nice knock in the first game but, and there’s always a but with Salman, he let himself down when it really mattered. It’s fine to do well against Bangladesh but his poor innings against Australia, a game in which Butt-er fingers also dropped catch, has made his Bangladesh innings pretty much insignificant in my eyes. The question mark is still there; will Butt deliver with the bat when it’s really needed? I’ve certainly given up on him ever improving his fielding. I just feel Imran Nazir should be here in his place, as Mohammad Hafeez could quite easily have played the consolidatory role Butt is probably in the line-up for. Added to his batting, Nazir is also one of our best fielders.

Captain Shahid Afridi also needs to step up his game. Not only has his batting and bowling been poor, but so has his captaincy. Clapping the Salman Butt dropped catch is just not good enough. Imran khan would have stared at Butt until he disintegrated into the ground beneath him. These are grown men; there is no place for these niceties. Watch an Australia drop a catch and watch the reaction of the captain and bowler, and you could bet they won’t be clapping their hands.

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