The Pakistan squad has a fairly settled look to it in contrast to their opponents. Controversy continues to surround the absence of Chris Gayle after the opener opted to play in the Indian Premier League instead of the home tour.

Gayle insisted he was forced to make a decision after being ignored by selectors, and reacted angrily to remarks made by the WICB that it was “disappointed” with his decision.

“A group of players were selected for a training camp in Barbados, and I never got a call, nobody spoke to me, and I decided to leave it alone,” Gayle told KLAS Sports, a radio station in Jamaica.

“I continued my training programme, and I came to find out via the media that a Twenty20 squad was announced, and a one-day international squad was announced, and I was stunned when I saw a big headline in the newspapers, ‘Gayle, Sarwan, Chanderpaul dropped’.”

While the West Indies continue their dispute in public, Pakistan will look to build on a successful turn out at the Cricket World Cup last month, and are counted as sports betting favourites for the T20 game following Gayle’s absence.

They will have to do something about their recent form in the shorter form of the game however, and will have the perfect opportunity to improve their record from one win in five to two in six this evening against a West Indies side without their big hitters.

Mohammad Salman is the squad’s only specialist keeper and will feature tonight, while Hammad Azam could be tested in the allrounder slot vacated by Abdul Razzaq.

On their last tour of the Caribbean, Pakistan were victorious in the one-day series before drawing the test series, and a similar return this time around would be counted as a success as a favourite based on sports bets has been difficult to establish.

With the prospect of winning their first ever test series in the West Indies on the horizon, a successful start to the tour with a T20 win could give the side the momentum it needs ahead of the test series which begins after the one-day series in May.

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. A major part of this was the loss to injury of Umar Gul before the tournament, leaving the pace department really weak. The performances of Abdul Razzaq with the ball, and Mohammed Sami did nothing to soften the blow from the loss of Gul. Razzaq started off the short and slow six balls from the beginning of the innings and was frustratingly poor, ending up giving 22 runs of just two overs. I think it is time up for both him and Sami.

With their run of defeats against the Australians, and the manner of the latest defeat, Pakistan will be left mentally scarred for some time to come. But they must show the positiveness they showed in their semi-final batting, and not fear the Australians but emulate them.

Hats off to Hussey, Mr Bevan+

Michael Hussey: Six machine

And now to give credit where it’s due: if there ever was a batsman in an innings who looked like he could do what ever he wanted, it was Hussey in the semi-final. Each time it got critical and he needed a six, he got it. His batting manner very much reminds me of Michael Bevan, though Bevan didn’t hit as many big boundaries. Credit must also go to Cameron White. Without his innings, Hussey’s improbable task would have been made an impossible one. White dragged Australia back into the game and Hussey duly finished it off as Mr Cricket showed us that he was also Mr Six-at-will.

Shane Watson’s Woes
By now you may be getting the impression that I don’t like this guy, and you’d be right. His swearing, and constant moaning at the umpires when he himself was bowling wides was really irritating. Watson has a history of behaving like a petulant child of course. How people see him as an all-rounder I do not know. His bowling was found out, quite beautifully, by England in the final, and soon, his batting will be too. The most pleasing thing was when he was knocked over by Haddin when they both went for the same catch. Forget picking him up, Haddin did not even look back at him so it just proves that not even his team mates like him. Watson needs to appreciate how fortunate he is. People like him need to be called to account so that the game does not slowly slip towards one where officials and players are pressured, abused and disrespected.

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.

Afridi also made a mistake by persisting with both Sami and Hafeez when they were leaking runs. I think Mohammad Asif needs to come in for Mohammad Sami, and be given his four overs up-front in which he could use the new ball to give us some high-class seam bowling. I was not sure why Abdul Razzaq was not bowling. It may be a personal choice of Razzaq’s so we cannot criticise the captain for that although it was Razzaq’s bowling that dragged us up off the floor in the last Twenty20 World Cup with some crucial wickets. Afridi needs to realise fast that he cannot rigidly stick to a game plan. Captains must be ready to adapt to conditions and any developments in play.

As we look forward to the rest of the tournament, the Australian game showed that Pakistan still have this inferiority complex when playing any western nation team. They need to change their mentality and play like Champions. They need to show that this Cup is theirs and that they are the best team in Twenty20 cricket not by luck, but on merit.

The last mention must go to Mohammad Aamer, who continues to be the shining light of Pakistan cricket. For an 18-year old to bowl a maiden 5-wicket last over in a World Cup game against arguably the strongest team, is not only a first, but probably a last. And it could only be a Pakistani kid couldn’t it?

Actually, sorry Aamer, I changed my mind. The last mention must go to Shane Watson, who is a living example that you do not have to have manners, be a decent person or be mature to be a cricketer. There is no place in cricket for swearing Shane. The “F… off” you directed at Saeed Ajmal was not only quite clearly visible, but also audible. Grow up Shane.

It’s really simple. Sign up HERE (just password, user-name and email etc), and pick your players from a list (make sure you have a quick look at the simple scoring system before hand). Once you have selected your team, go to the left-hand side red panel and select ‘user comp join’, from the second drop down menu select ‘Maza786 T20 Fantasy 201 (ICC World Twenty20 2010)’. Done!

You only have a couple of days before the start of the World Cup so do it now! It will take you 10 minutes. If I did it, you can! “Don’t be so hard on yourself”, I hear you say…you did say that didn’t you? Say it! So hurry along, it’ll be nice to get everyone together.

It was Aldous Huxley that once said “The pleasures of ignorance are as great, in their way, as the pleasures of knowledge” and it is evident from the article that Chopra gained great pleasure in telling us what he ‘knows’ about Pakistan cricket. Certainly, from his photo on Cricinfo, it is clear he is someone quite fond of himself generally. Having taken exception to his piece, I decided to write the following as a comment: “A shameful article by someone who quite clearly has a chip on his shoulder. How long have you kept that pent up inside you?”. Who thinks my comment was allowed through? Wrong, it wasn’t, but can anyone tell me why?

Here’s a taste of his work:
“There is a way of describing Pakistani cricket, which used to be tiresome but which has now started to strike me as patently offensive. This is the insistence that Pakistani cricket is charmingly erratic, wonderfully unpredictable, beautifully inconsistent, sublimely indisciplined. Right, I’m making these up. But you see the pattern. Pair a couple of adjectives which span the spectrum from the sublime to the sordid and have a go at describing Pakistani cricket. And I suspect the world of Pakistani cricket revels in this description, because this sort of indulgent tolerance gives it a free pass.”

The basic theme of his article is that Pakistan is the troubled member of the cricketing family with it’s indiscipline and should not be helped all the time. “A common feature of the calls for a display of solidarity with the Pakistani cricket world in its “time of need” is the invocation of “family” and “fraternity”.” Utter garbage! Sri Lanka apart, when has the cricketing world shown us solidarity or come to our aid? Quite the opposite, the most powerful board in cricket, the one he supports, has done it’s very utmost to sideline Pakistan. How on earth could he describe solidarity with Pakistan as a common feature?

Whilst nitpicking, he even mentions Inzamam Ul-Haq’s clash with a spectator as proof of Pakistan crickets troubles. But he completely ignores the troubles of other teams; Harbhajan’s slapping of his own team mate and racial slur to Symonds (with threats of quitting the entire tour) come to mind. How about the problems the West Indies have had?

Whether he truly believes what he wrote, or whether it was a sad attempt at driving traffic to his other blog (which I won’t mention), it is very dangerous and careless to put out views like that. He should stay clear of things he does not know about. It is people like him and his holier-than-thou attitude that do Indo-Pak relations no good. The sad thing is that they are promoted by the site that calls itself the home of cricket. The interesting thing is that Cricinfo would give us all this rubbish about democracy and free-speech as the reason for allowing his views, but then they’d have to tell me why they didn’t publish my comment wouldn’t they? ESPN Cricinfo has lost it’s neutrality a very long time ago and you can let them know here.

Captains take a bite. Maybe there was something wrong with the Australian food?

Afridi was being touted for captain in the Test and ODI formats and I would not have minded. He made a good case with his recent performances and showed signs of maturity but his actions here have got me wondering if he really has matured. Yes, every team probably does it Shahid, but I doubt they use their teeth and make it so blatantly obvious. He may as well have gone up to umpire Asoka De Silva and asked to use his dentures. And when quizzed on Pakistani television, why on earth did he come out with the excuse that he was smelling the ball? He would have even been better off saying that he was starving because of the poor Australian cuisine.

Afridi has history of course. In a game against England, he walked onto the middle of the pitch and preceded to do a few pirouettes to scuff up the track with his spikes. Highly subtle once again. Yet maybe he should have used his spikes on the ball this time by stepping on it as it obviously legal as it worked for Stuart Broad in the recent match against South Africa where he got away with it.

Stuart Broad, sinking his spikes into the ball & doing "nothing wrong"

And the difference between what Broad and Afridi did? Nothing. So why did he get away with it? Well it’s obvious, Broad is an Englishman. Broad knew what he was doing and as soon as the allegations emerged, the English PR machine went into overdrive with Broad being “astonished” by the allegations, Strauss calling them “malicious” and Cook being angry since they’d done “nothing wrong”. At the time, Nasser Hussain, Michael Vaughan and Simon Wilde of The Sunday Times had suggested that the outcome would have been far different if the bowler who did it was from Pakistan. It is clear this difference they spoke of is being shown to some extent in how Afridi’s actions were dealt with. If you look at the effect it has on the ball, surely metal spikes are worse than the enamel that teeth are made of? But I guess in the eyes of the ICC, a Pakistani is worse than an Englishman too.

What Afridi did was wrong and embarrassing, but that and what Broad did shows why it continues to pay to be from certain countries. Just ask Sulieman Benn who was suspended after an incident with Mitchell Johnson and the saint that is Brad Haddin. Haddin, who instigated the clash, and Johnson who clearly makes physical contact with Benn first (at 3 minutes 55 secs), were only fined a fraction of their match fees, whereas Benn was banned, after the match referee had finished analysing his findings. That match referee was Broad’s daddy Chris, by the way. If you don’t want to call it racism, then call it whatever you will, but what it is, is obvious.

When the match began and the West Indian batsmen capitulated, I was beginning to question what the West Indians were doing there and whether it would have been more worthwhile, for a top 8 tournament, for Bangladesh to have been included instead. Yet the West Indian fight back with the ball was encouraging even if the Bangladeshi players may feel they probably deserve to be at the Champions Trophy. Maybe the ICC could have told the West Indies board that if their contract dispute was not resolved in time, the Bangladesh team would go to South Africa instead. Let’s just hope the Windies carry on holding their own in the next two games at least.

As for Pakistan, the two stars of the show were teenagers, Mohammed Aamer and Umar Akmal. Aamer continues to impress after a successful T20 World Cup and Umar has just burst on the international scene and looks at home already. His innings today prevented a possible embarrassment. Being a usually attacking batsman, with a ODI strike rate above 100, he assessed the situation and played an intelligent innings along with Afridi to carry Pakistan over the finishing line. When Afridi was asked what he liked about him he said, “I love brave heart people and he is brave”. Watch out for him and Mohammed Aamer, 19 and 17 years old respectively, in the rest of the tournament, the latest fresh off the unmatched Pakistan cricket production line.

For Pakistan to win the tournament the batsmen need to perform but with arguably the best bowling attack in the world, we’re always in with a chance.  India are up next yet have been dealt a major blow with Yuvraj out of the tournament with a broken finger. This I think will have a major effect on what was deemed to be India’s strongest part of the game, their batting. The three others in the group, Pakistan, West Indies and Australia, will see this as a boost.

There’ll be lots of ifs, buts and maybes from the Indians; would India have did it had Yuvraj stopped the 5 byes in Harbajan’s last over? Yuvraj himself would say that he made up for that with a ridiculously good first ball 6. Then there’s Jadeja who faced 3 overs of dots. Many said that he played too slow yet he will argue that he got two important wickets including that of Pietersen’s and took an important catch.

It was clear what Pietersen and Collingwood felt fired the English up and that was the booing their team got at the beginning of the game. It was a strange thing to have occurred, especially at a cricket ground, yet supporters of other sides should take note of the possible real consequences of booing the opposition.

But the day India lost to the Windies, they also lost to England as the English watched and noted the Windies paceman trouble the Indian batsmen with bouncers, and licked their lips. If the English had thought at the time of employing the same strategy against India, the question must be asked if the India coaching staff told their batsmen to practice countering short pitched balls in the nets. It was an effective tactic to employ against the Indian batsmen as it’s not the type of shot they often use and also because many of them use heavier bats. Indeed, Nasser Hussain suggested on commentary that the short pitched ball was effective because the Indians love to drive. Unfortunately for the Champs, they won’t be driving but flying, all the way home.

To all Indian fans who still have tickets to the remaining games, we invite you to come and get behind Pakistan.

At one point England were 109 for 4. This very fact should show the importance of Bopara’s innings in getting England onto the front foot and ahead in the game, a position from where they had the chance to win. Without that century, it would have been a classic England draw.

Yes, Swann was able to free his arms and get 63 with the bat but why? Yes, Swann was able to attack with the ball to get 6 wickets but why? It was because of Bopara’s innings.

Unfortunately Ravi, just like Owais Shah had to do twice as much to keep his place, you will have to play twice as good to be man of the match.

Stani Army’s man of the match was Ravinder Bopara.

Born in Karachi and with a preference to bat at 3, he brings with him the wristy talent which the England side is missing but for some reason, has been overlooked. This is not the first time this has happened. In the past, his county coach John Emburey has voiced his frustration as to why Shah does not get a fair chance saying “Owais has never been backed at England level”. He also accused the England selectors of operating a “closed shop”. This can be backed up by the fact that Collingwood or Cook are always given ample opportunity to find form when they are performing bad.

Add to the above arguments that Shah is one of England’s better players of spin, you would think he would have been a dead cert particularly after their batsmen struggled with Sulieman Benn in the West Indies, who with all due respect is not exactly one of the leading spinners in world cricket.

If you look at his county stats, you just cannot fault him. As Emburey once said, “perhaps his face doesn’t fit”.