When a newspaper editor told me to do a piece on tour of Zimbabwe cricket team to Pakistan for five limited over internationals before we get to the serious end of the things when Australia is scheduled to play a three Tests and five ODI s series in Pakistan in March-April, 2008, I was little surprised at the fact that there are still some Pakistanis out there who want to peek into what is going into Pakistan cricket these days.
In the photo above Timycen Maruma is cleaned bowled by Yasir Shah during Patron’s XI v Zimbabweans match at Karachi.
After a four day match in Karachi, which the local side convincingly won by an innings an 34 runs, the tour now goes into ODIs with first one to be played in Karachi on Jan 21, 2008. Let us take a look at Pakistan’s chances and team mix for this series.
Pakistan’s most loved and glamorous sport has unfortunately become nothing but a mixture of controversies, more controversies, injuries, personality clashes and rhetorical statements.
Pakistan’s spineless exhibition in India also failed to create any ripples in the cricket management. It seems many Pakistanis are feeling too despondent by the mess created by our superstars and by administrators of cricket authority. People may also be overwhelmed with things going on in political, social and economic arenas that they became numb towards recent cricket performance of Pakistan. As of today Pakistan has fallen down to #6 in ICCs ODI rankings as well as in ICCs test rankings. This situation can be bolstered by few victories against Zimbabwe in coming days. Another thing that can spark a hope in cricket loving Pakistanis is the selection of young faces that can pull their team out of this muddle.
15-man squad has some fresh faces for Pakistan. Five youngsters have been selected for the first two one day internationals including an opener Jamshed Nasir and two fast bowlers Samiullah Khan Niazi and Kamran Hussain, one wicket-keeper Sarfraz Ahmed and Fawad Alam the all-rounder. Is this selection pointing at the discontent with experienced fellows such as Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Sami, Kamran Akmal, Umar Gul and available set of openers? This policy of nurturing pseudo super-stars has already proven itself good for nothing. Now we seem to be experimenting with another extreme by giving chances to youngsters only. But both policies are not good enough to produce results for Pakistan cricket. We should dump both theories and adopt another policy of doing our selection meritoriously which is the best possible solution to become potent force at an international level.
Rumors of Shahid Afridi being picked as the skipper of Pakistan cricket team died with the announcement of the squad where PCB seemed fine with giving one more chance to young skipper against somewhat feeble-looking Zimbabwe. May be this could be the last chance to get things in order for Shoaib Malik; both as retaining his position in the squad and secondly as skipper to handle things more maturely. But dwell more on the point of retaining his position in the side concerned, I think he is a utility player and an intelligent cricketer and it would be little too harsh to snatch his place in the side.
X-raying the opponent makes us little comfortable in our armchairs but still we cannot take them lightly. They are young but eager side to do well on the tour especially when they can see cracks in Pakistan team after disastrous Indian tour. This is the same side that dumbfounded Australians in their encounter during T20 Championship and spring one of the few biggest upsets game has ever seen and recently entangled Windies in a mess during 50 over cricket. So beware wherever they get low and slow track in Pakistan, they are very much capable to force unsure Pakistani batting line-up to flounder. So keep your fingers crossed.
Records and history overwhelmingly seem to favour Pakistan. 33 ODIs have been played between Pakistan and Zimbabwe, and Pakistan has won 31 of them whic gives them a winning percentage of 92.64. Hopefully, Pakistan team would pull out the upcoming series successfully but as we all know that you never know with unpredictable Pakistan cricket team.
Players to watch out:
Zimbabwe: Brendan Taylor, reliable wicket-keeper and batsman in the middle order. He is one player who can face fast stuff from Pakistanis.
Pakistan: Samiullah Khan Niazi, young Pathan with the ability to run through a side as he done against Zimbabweans in a side match. Pakistan needs a fast bowler who can make big names such as Shoaib Akhtar, Umar Gul, and Mohammad Sami uneasy sitting in front of their TV sets and thinking about getting ready to be challenged because they think they are indispensable.
Photo Credits: Cricinfo
short but good analysis…
there was a time when even first class matches used to get me the dost yar talking cricket for hours….but i find myself strangely detached now…
but the last 2 years have been very heavy burdens for the Pakistani cricket fans..especially die hard ones like me to bear…I found it hard to even watch the last Indian series and ever present cricinfo scorecard made a departure from my desktop….there was just no maza in it anymore…
watching semi talented prima donna’s go out and simply embaress us day in and day out…
and i find it further embaressing that our cricketing glory has sunk to such extremes that were actually looking forward to a Zimbabwe series as a stepping stone to developing our team and game…there was a time and when fresh and nubile younngsters were blooded in key series against England and the Indians….no more that i guess…
no more swagger………….no more attitude…9 to 5’ers walee body language….no pride…and in fact a microcosm for all that is wrong with us as a country..
I am left with the crumbs of glories past…watching cricket classics on Ten sports every night :) much to my wife’s annoyance…
I didnt think it was possible…but Shoaib Malik…good player and team man that he is…..his captaincy has been insipid at best….he even made Inzimam look like a dynamic captain on the field which is saying something…
I was always in favour of Afridi becoming Captain…if only for his no fear attitude and in your face body language…he can single handedly lift our teams spirits and look the opposition in the eye…
again…Id rather have a Lion lead an army of lambs than the other way around…
and Pakistan’s loosing streak in Test cricket must be pinned in great part to Kamran Akmal’s misreable keeping…I have yet to see an international keeper THIS bad…and he doesnt even make up for it by scoring a boat load of runs…and no..his recent good scores in dead wickets in India dont count…
why are subjected to the horror of his keeping? starting from England to this Indian series…he had not only dropped catches…but dropped big name players at the most crucial times…and those have been turning points in almost all tests…first test against SA last fall case in point…that in turn has sapped the confidence and morale of the bowlers…and he shamelessly refuses to improve
Faisal Iqbal is another hopelessly mediocre player that must not be allowed into the team again….he has been given opportunity after opportunity but has shown that he is out f his depth here….
unfortunately I believe that we will still see these guys again…maybe loosing the Indian series by 2-0 or 3-0 would have been a cheap price to pay to get rid of these two….
Cricket was the only thing I had as a Pakistani that made me feel like a winner from time to time…now im reduced to watching re-runs and old VCR tapes to relive that feeling…I feel like my pride has been stolen from me
PS…by the way…if anyone is a regular at matches at the Gaddaffi stadium in Lahore they would probably remember…me and a group of friends are always there…we call ourselves MIGs…Men In Green…neon green jumpers and same coloured floppy cricket hats…we have a bald guy with head painted half white and half green….recently the same group of people went to support the Pakistan team in Mohali where pakistan won chasing 300 plus….
This is certainly the best time to try out new faces, though I hope the selectors will be more sensible than the last time they tried to ditch the established players, after the 99 World Cup, when among other things, they selected Qaiser Abbas to play in a one-day international when he hadn’t even played in one in any domestic competition.
We do need to give Kamran Akmal an extended break from international cricket. One would like to see the back of Shoaib Akhtar permanently, but the fact remains that when fit and motivated he remains the most likely match winner in the present team.
There’s no point changing the captaincy now, because that will merely encourage more politics within the team as others jockey for the prized post.The PCB is right to give Malik every chance to succeed or fail on his own.
I think it would be unfair for them to sack Shoaib Malik; the way they have lost the previous few matches had more to do with horrible bowling than captaincy.
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There was a time when no matter what was going on in Pakistan – cricket was always a safe refuge. But with country under seige by the suicide bombers and characters like fazalullah and baitullah – the “maza” is just not there…