Stani Army

Like their near neighbours on the sub-continent Pakistan will head into the cricket World Cup with the voices of their huge passionate support ringing in their ears.

Cricket is a religion in those parts, and while that has enormous benefits it also brings with it the pressure of expectation and the glare of the media spotlight with almost everyone in the country keeping an eye on their latest scores.

Pakistan have had more than their fair share of media attention in recent months, but upon their arrival in Bangladesh the players seemed quietly confident and content to concentrate on matters on the pitch.

Certainly the mood of this Pakistan team is key to their success. They possess the talent but it is their tendency to blow hot and cold that infuriates their passionate support – they know what the players can do, they just don’t always show it.

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An irresponsible captain is a bad captain

Earlier today we saw Pakistan lose the first of three Twenty20s to New Zealand, who got home with 2.5 overs to spare. Pakistan had got themselves into at least two good positions to make a game of it, only to surrender meekly.

Chief architect of the downfall was Captain Shahid Afridi. Whilst many would disagree and say he played well for his 20 of 17 balls, it was his gormless shot that triggered a signature collapse. Going at 10 an over after the first 4 overs, Afridi did not have the nous to take advantage of a fast start and begin to rein himself in, keep wickets in hand and then to accelerate later. It was as if he wanted to finish the game in that over. That was his intention, and his shot selection was even worse.

Were it not for Umar Gul and Wahab Riaz, who both made 30, Pakistan would not have ended up with a defendable total of 143. It was at the start of the New Zealand innings that Afridi made his second mistake by opening the bowling with Abdul Razzaq. Even at his best, Razzaq was an average bowler. Having aged and lost some pace, he has become easy pickings for batsmen. Any late good work done by Gul and Wahab was immediately wasted as Razzaq went for 15 off his first over. Suddenly, 143 off 20 overs became 128 off 19. A different game already and New Zealand’s tails were up.

The strange thing is that it wasn’t as if Afridi was limited in choice of who to open the attack with. Wahab, Akhtar and Gul were playing, and we had Ajmal, Hafeez and Afrdi himself to make up any overs remaining. There was no need to bowl Razzaq, even less need to open with him

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Pakistan have announced the squad for the upcoming ODI series and Twenty Internationals against England and there are a few interesting changes. It does seem that one squad of 16 has been announced for both formats with the likes of Abdur Rehman and Shoaib Malik who had made  the 14 man Twenty20 squad that beat Australia 2-0 earlier on the tour, missing out this time around.

The fortunes of Yousuf and Malik seem to be going in opposite directions

Shoaib Malik’s exclusion for the last Test against England came as no surprise but his exclusion from this limited over squad is slightly more surprising. With Fawad Alam and Mohammed Hafeez coming back in, maybe Malik’s role would have been seen as being covered adequately enough. Hafeez’s inclusion also means that there is no place for Imran Farhat, who strangely enough, is probably more suited to the shorter form.

Most interestingly, Mohammed Yousuf has completed his come back by being named also. One would think that he’d only be used in the ODIs but I for one am certain he could do a job in the Twenty20 see-ball hit-ball form of the game. Younis Khan was overlooked because, according to captain Shahid Afridi, he has not sorted out his dispute with the PCB. In what seems a very unsympathetic and ruthless statement, Afridi said: “I asked the chairman PCB about the situation with Younis twice. But the clearance wasn’t given by the PCB. I did what I had to do”. Make of that what you will.

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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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With Shahid Afridi announcing his return to the Test scene, is he nailed on to become captain in all three formats? If the recent Twenty20 World Cup was anything to go by, he certainly still has a lot to learn as captain, but this was probably to be expected.

The good thing is that Test game is much slower paced than Twenty20 and will give Afridi time to think over any decisions and confer with other players. He would also be able to get the input of the coaching staff during drinks breaks, at the end of sessions and at the close of play.

Apart from Afridi, who else is there as possible Test captain? The only other likely candidate, Younis Khan, is still serving his indefinite ban and is waiting on his appeal to be heard. This hearing will definitely not come in time for for him to be considered for the ODI captaincy as his appeal has been adjourned until the 29th of this month with the Asia Cup captain to be named on the 25th. Chances are that the Asia cup captain will probably be Afridi, and this, along with Younis’ ban and Afridi’s desire to return to the Test side, may have made the decision to keep him as Test captain merely a formality. With Afridi’s request in the media of a quick resolution to the damaging allegations surrounding the Pakistan team, he is beginning to sound the part of captain at least.

As a player, I think his return to the Test scene will give us a much more potent and balanced side. The argument is that his batting is not up to Test standard

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Pakistan’s Twenty20 World Cup semi-final loss took Australia’s domination over Pakistan to 12 wins in a row in all formats. Whilst a lot of credit must be given to the Australians for their performance in the semi-final, I disagree with Pakistan Coach Waqar Younis who said “I don’t think we went wrong anywhere. We did a good job, but you’ve just got to give credit to the Australians….I thought we bowled pretty well”. I know that it is our batsmen that usually lose us games and not our bowlers, so we cannot be too critical of them. But some of the bowling in defending 191 in the semi-final was brainless. Even up until the last four overs, just two reasonable overs from four would have made it almost impossible for Australia to come back from and win the game. Yet both Aamer and Ajmal were guilty of bowling the wrong line and far too short. Saeed Ajmal was trusted for the last over as he had done a very good job when Pakistan were in a similar situation in the game against South Africa. Ajmal thought he’d proceed in doing the same thing whilst failing to realise he was bowling to Michael Hussey. Short, and to middle and leg, Hussey just picked him off for sixes. Ajmal should have realised after his first delivery to Hussey that the way to go was full and wide to the off side, but that would have meant thinking for himself.

In general, Pakistan did not deserve to retain the World Cup even if they had squeezed into the semi-finals. Every team had either stayed at the same level from last time or improved, apart from us and maybe India.

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Something is going on with Pakistan’s catching. Having dropped seven in one Test against New Zealand, here against the Australians, they’ve started where they left off. The first dropped catch, which flew to Umar Akmal, was travelling at pace but should have been grasped at this level. The second, a superb, mesmerizing doosra from Saeed Ajmal to Shane Watson was even easier, dropped by Misbah at slip after taking a touch off the keeper’s gloves.

Catching's not easy when you can't see properly

It is a serious issue and Pakistan are beginning to pay the price for not taking these chances. Though they do have their new fielding and bowling coach Waqar Younis with them, it may have been better to have asked an optician to have accompanied the team to Australia. I think an eyesight test now has to be a must for each player, seriously.

You have to feel for the bowlers. Not only do dropped catches give the batsmen extra chances but they demoralise the bowlers and put the rest of the field under pressure. What a start to 17 year old Aamer’s first Test in Australia it would have been had Akmal held onto that catch? The last team in the world you should be giving opportunities to are the Australians. Katich was on 8* when he was drooped, Watson on 43*, they went on to make 98 and 93 respectively. It would not be too early to suggest that those two drops look to already have cost Pakistan the Test with Australia now in such a commanding position.

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So what was wrong with the Pakistan team that reached the Semi-finals of the Champions Trophy? For some reason, when the squads were named for the New Zealand games, there were some surprising names in there. But it didn’t stop there. Changes were made to the team also and the team taking the field in each of the three ODIs against New Zealand was a different one.

There was no Shoaib Malik or Rana Naved in the first ODI (not to mention Imran Nazir who wasn’t even in the squad). In the second ODI, Umar Akmal was dropped and Shoaib Malik was brought in. For today’s game, Mohammad Yousuf made way and back came Umar Akmal. Ask most Pakistan fans and very few would say we went in with our best side in any of these three ODIs.

Consistency in selection usually results in consistency in performance so why the need to make changes? These changes have basically all come about because of the conundrum that Pakistan are having with their openers. Khalid Latif, one of the openers brought in, has done very well averaging 43. His partner on the other hand, Salman Butt

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