I know I am putting this post right after our ‘I am grateful..’ post but Pakistan has just lost a Test-Cricket series in Australia by 3-0 margin. So while I am grateful, I am a little bit disappointed too. Just a little bit. Actually today’s white wash didn’t disappoint me as much as captain Yousuf’s comments later on. He has said that ‘Our team is young and I am satisfied with their performance’. Yesterday he also gave a statement which basically said that in the past Pakistan had brought star studded teams to Australia and lost; atleast he brought a young team and lost so he is better than previous Pakistani teams. As long as our aim is to lose better than previous teams, we are aiming too low. Seems like the word win was not even in the aim. Can anyone imagine such statement from our previous captains like Imran Khan or Wasim Akram? That was probably the difference between the two teams. Australia is also a very new side but they were playing with a hunger to win.
Pakistan has now not won a single test match in Australia since December 4, 1995. During second test match of this series Pakistan at one time needed only 125 runs to win with 9 wickets in hand. At that instance I was naive enough to actually put a draft post at ATP celebrating Pakistan’s win in Australia after 15 years. I did not publish that post and then I fall asleep. I woke up few hours later to see the heartbreak hotel. Pakistan had lost remaining 9 wickets in 89 runs and lost the match. I was so glad of not publishing the post earlier and then deleted my draft write-up with a heavy heart.
Pakistan’s last victory in a test series was in 2006 in a home series against West Indies. It is easy to demand resignations, sweeping changes, sending all current players home and rebuilding the team from scratch but the scary thing is that Pakistan has no batting talent for test matches besides what we’ve got in the current team.
Who can name atleast 4 batsmen of test calibre that can replace the current bunch in test matches? Only Taufeeq Umar (Age 28, Test Average 39.29 from 46 innings), Asim Kamal (Age 33, Test Average 37.73 from 20 innings), Fawad Alam (Age 24, Test average 41.66 from 6 innings) and Yasir Hameed (Age 31, Test Average 34.52 from 45 innings)’s names come to mind. And then we have Younis Khan (32 years old) with Test Average of 50.09 from 112 innings. I think it won’t be long before we see Younis back in action in Test Matches. We need batsmen for test teams with solid 40+ averages.
In the current team following are the Test-Cricket batting averages of our stars.
(1) M Yousuf: 53.07 overall and 29.66 in current series
(2) Salman Butt: 30.96 over all and 46.66 in current series
(3) Khurram Manzoor: 29.63 overall and 38.50 in current series
(4) Shoaib Malik: 36.11 overall and 38.50 in current series.
(5) Umar Akmal: 48.16 overall and 33.16 in current series.
(6) Misbah-ul-Haq: 33.6 overall and 25.33 in current series
(7) Faisal Iqbal: 26.76 overall and 24.25 in current series.
(8) Kamran Akmal: 33.55 overall and 16.75 in current series.
Besides the current team, if I may say, the tier two batsmen are not worth of 2 day matches, let alone 5 day test of test matches. I closely followed the premier domestic QeA trophy matches this year and there is no batting talent for test matches to speak of. I know I am making a very general statement but this is truly what I believe and what I saw from QeA matches this year.
Now twenty20 format is a different ball game. We will find many batsmen in Pakistan very capable for Twenty20 but the technique and temprament needed from a test match batsman seems to have got lost in Pakistan.
Fielding and catching also needs to be improved tremendously. Pakistan dropped 14 catches in 3 test matches – the highest I’ve ever known to be dropped by Pakistan.
I won’t put much blame on bowlers as I think we have got ‘OK to better’ bowling talent in the team.
What do our readers think?
It is interesting to read how Kamran/Umar tried to gang up before 3rd test. Dawn newspaper is calling it ‘Munna Bhai and Circuit’ situation :) These guys kept talking to Australian media even though by PCB contract they cannot do so. After dropping 4-catches and 1-stump, Kamran was still saying australian press that he will play in 3rd test as WK. Umar, it is said that tried to fake an injury so that if Kamran didn’t play then he wouldn’t have to play either.
This is Pakistan team we are talking about. not a family run business.
Nadeem.F.Paracha is a sorry existence on face of earth who has always proved himself as a leftist version Khomeni. NFP always showed off his ignorance on various matters and continuously proved himself a girl severely dumped by her boyfriend(Zia-ul-Haq). He’s the s”english version” of comedian Amanullah who always believed that stupid and vulgar jokes would help him to earn some respect.
Do remember that Yusuf just became the captain. Prior to that Yunus Khan was the captain who was more busy in watching movies than anyone else. Also,Three other former captains faced similar fate against Australia.
If we talk about records then it’s a well known fact that Pakistan reached on 3rd rank in ICC ranking when Inzy was the captain. Similarly Pakistan won more matches in his era. I know liberals despise the religion just like Infidels hate Ka’ba but such fascism by lefts is not going to give them anything on ground
I think we should have one team for “Tests and ODIs” and a separate team for Twenty20s.
Test batsmen should be trained on basics like straight bat, when and how to leave bouncers, out swingers and wide balls. etc.
Eidee…agreed!…..indeed bra man…it’s really about a good performance at the end of the day. However, you can’t expect to compete against the Aussie with the likes of Faisal Iqbal, Imran Farhat, Kamran Akmal and other laloo panjoos etc. to deliver at this level. Let’s build a team with the most competent & mature/aged cricketers to perform at the Test level.
One day and 20s can be the building blocks for these guys to reach the very top (which I believe is Test Cricket)…
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Well it is true that we(team) need to believe in their abilities and they need to believe they can win and win against good teams. Specially after Sydney test first 2 days I thought now they will start believeing that they can pull of some victories here in Australia but they did worse they just hand it over to Aussies. It is just beyond my comprehension, if there is so much talk and sense in fans around the web and other media as well as general public what the hell is PCB doing are they even worse then our politicians?