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
We have had such rebuilding phases before. The question is whether they are doing something different this time.
One thing we really need to do is to have lively pitches where the batsmen and bowlers both have a decent chance. Only then we should hope to produce a decent batting line up that can consistently perform on more bouncy or grassy wickets.
On a tangent, overly batsman friendly pitches are also a major reason for the decline of one day cricket. 300 run pitches are inherently less likely to produce close and excitin matches than more lively, 230-240 run tracks.
If a team batting first scores something like 340 on a 300 run pitch, then the second team is under constant pressure to maintain an average of around 7. Even if they make a good start and score something like 100-110 in the first 15 overs, it only takes a couple of economical overs to put them under tremendous pressure. This usually leads to the fall of 1-2 quick wickets and then the rest of the match is just an inconsequential drag. This happened in several world cup matches last year, including the final. In contrast to this, a 230-240 pitch still allows some chance to the second team to chase a score in the range of 270-280 because that does not require keeping up with a rate of around 7 throughout the innings.
On the other hand, if the side batting first is restricted to something like 270 odd on a 300 run pitch, then it becomes too easy for the second team to chase this target since there is little the bowlers can do on such a wicket. On a 230-240 kind of pitch, the first team still has a chance to defend a relatively modest total of 200 odd by bowling well since the wicket also offers something to the batsman.
Spectators don’t just want boundaries; at the end of the day, they want close matches in which both batsmen and bowlers display their mastery and provide optimal entertainment.
Cricket managers and commentators who are wondering why one day games are becoming incresingly one sided need to look into the negative role of overly batsmen friendly pitches instead of childishly blaming the format of the 2007 world cup. They would also do well to compare the results of the 1992 and 1999 world cups (where the pitches also provided some support to bowlers) and the 1996 and 2007 world cups (where the pitches had very little for bowlers).
The 8 half-centuries that were scored today is the world record for their highest number in an ODI
Shoaib Malik completed his 4000 runs in ODIs today. He thus becomes Pakistan’s 12th player to do so.
1. Inzamam-ul-Haq 11739 runs at 39.52 runs/inning
2. Saeed Anwar 8823 at 39.21
3. M Yousuf 8722 at 42.54
4. Javed Miandad 7381 at 41.7
5. Saleem Malik 7170 at 32.88
6. Ijaz Ahmed 6564 at 32.33
7. Rameez Raja 5841 at 32.09
8. Shahid Afridi 5241 at 23.29
9. Aamer Sohail 4780 at 31.86
10. Younis Khan 4492 at 32.55
11. Abdul Razzak 4465 at 29.96
12. Shoaib Malik 4047 at 34.29
no Daktar Saab….
I believe the PCB and this current Pakistan has almost…almost killed cricket in Pakistan…
as I said…this cricket team is a microcosm of all that we are as a nation….they reflect why we are in terminal decline…
Pakistan just crushed Zimbabwe with a huge victory. But not even a comment on the game here as it was unfolding. Unusual for ATP. Does this mean that politics killed cricket in Pakistan?