Something positive from England!

Pakistan might call this tour as a successful one, but England tour is just round the corner with know THAT won’t be our home-series!
Pakistan’s chasing traumas Sydney 2010 – An Australian collapse for 127 in the first innings had left Pakistan with a target of 176 in the fourth innings – their best opportunity to end a winless run against Australia since Sydney 1995. The openers added a brisk 34 but wickets fell in clusters thereafter and Pakistan were shot out for 139. Dunedin 2009 – Umar Akmal’s debut Test. After making a hundred in the first innings, Akmal was once again the lynchpin, scoring 75, as Pakistan attempted to chase 251. They had a fair chance at 95 for 3 and 161 for 4, but lost their last six wickets for 57. Galle 2009 – Pakistan were 36 for 0 and then 71 for 2, only 97 runs away from victory. Then followed a collapse to rival all other collapses during which eight wickets fell for only 46 runs. Salman Butt was the only one to make it past 20. Port Elizabeth 2007 – The last time Pakistan successfully chased a target of less than 200. Set a target of 191, Pakistan were facing defeat after Shaun Pollock and Makhaya Ntini had reduced them to 92 for 5. Younis Khan, who batted steadily, and Kamran Akmal led a revival that grew into a match-winning partnership of 99, securing a five-wicket victory.

Atlast a vacuity of 15 years was shattered tonight by Pakistan on Australia. I can bet every Pakistani was on the edge of the seat when wicket tally started to move from 3 to 4, than 4 to 5 and when the scores were tied at that vary moment when Kamran Akmal got brilliantly caught off the slips by Mike Hussey, honestly speaking I had my heart in my mouth, and when Umar Gul hit the winning run, my breath got well.

It was SOMEwhat a job well done still slipups can be seen in the batting department, which apart from this time, backfired 3 times in the series (keeping in mind there were only 4 innings for Pakistani batters to bat in this short series), but there can be some positives from this England tour specially in youngsters department where we had much better bowling than Aussies in both the tests, and in batting Azhar Ali had the temperament and got into the limelight! As far as the Junior Akmal concern he didn’t impressed me much apart from being too interactive on the field!

But need of a player with the likes of Younus is required as apart from Junior Akmal there isn’t a batter who could hold the pillars of Pakistani middle order and under him I am sure Azhar Ali will be groomed the most.

Now when this Pakistan Australia series is concluded, England’s series is gonna start just in a 5 days time from now! and England players would be keenly watching this series and observing them, so one might think that another tough fight is in the pipelines for Pakistanis as Pakistanis wont have the privilege of being the host while playing against the England.

And as far as the captaincy woes concern, let us give time to Salman Butt, even a road when gets laid, needs time to get hard before it can be opened for traffic, so skipper needs sometime too and there should be strong hold on players else they’d get out of control like we saw just after ICC World T20 2009…

Too much for Aussies!

Big trouble for Aussies, but Sydney happened just 6 months ago…

If statistically speaking, this has been Aussies second worst performance against Pakistan in tests. Some of the more lows regarding this match is as follows!

• This has been Australia’s second lowest score against Pakistanis
• In 1956 when Australia were bowled out for 80 runs @ Karachi which Pakistan able to win by 9 wickets!
• During that 1956 Karachi test, Ian Johnson had won the toss and put themselves into bat.
• With respect to number of overs played, this has been the 4th worst first inning total
• Prominent scorer in yesterday’s first test against Pakistan, Tim Paine 17 is the fourth-lowest top-score for Australia in a Test innings in which all 11 batsmen have batted. This, then, makes it Australia’s lowest top score in the last 110 years. The three previous ones were all against England: 10 in Sydney in 1888, 15 at The Oval in 1886, and 16 again at The Oval in 1896.
• As far as Pakistan’s concern, this is their fourth lowest total on which they bowled the opposition out, on the other hand this has been the third while they loss the toss!
• Pakistan’s opening stand has put Pakistan on top and may be a contender for first test win since the Sydney test of 1995 which although was a dead rubber when the series was already decided but that this time there’s a CHANCE of cracking that syndrome!
• On the other hand Aussies are on the verge of their first live test match defeat since Calcutta test in 1998
• The last time Pakistan beat Australia by an innings was when they won by an innings and 188 runs on designer pitch in Karachi where Mudassar Nazar and Aamer Malik opened the bowling in both innings.

Are you nuts!!!

Lawson wants Shoaib Malik to be the test skipper! http://www.cricinfo.com/pakistan-v-australia-2010/content/story/467875.html

Mr. Politician as he (Shoaib Malik) is known in Pakistan, was once again recommended by the former coach, Geoffrey Frances Lawson for the test team which is playing in England against Aussies and later against England, and with due respect our former coach wants Malik to head Pakistan in remaining 5 test matches being played in England! Is he nuts? How can he be obvious choice when his own position in the current team isn’t confirm! The last full series we played under him was against India in India in 2007 and how pathetic we played there, stats and reports clearly show, giving Indians a chance to have added advantage on Pakistan in recent years!

The way he created all those plots, only on having doubts on some of the players he was against and the kinda game he played than especially after the champions trophy 2009 in South Africa, the ODI and T20 series played in the UAE and the test series concluded in the New Zealand clearly shows he’s not a team man when he refused to take crease just because of the green top, are such players taken with the team? I know he has some other good advantages but apart from that, being a team player matters the most, which I don’t think he’s! He’s still playing for his position in the current Pakistan outfit!

After the inquiry committee video leaked on Pakistani television, it was clearly visible that Malik was the person behind all these bunch of a long drama serial, shrink into a mini one thanks to pathetic performance in Australia where we weren’t able to bag one win, so how can he be an automatic choice over Salman Butt! Bring back Younus and Yousuf as individual players as Pakistan dearly needs the services of those, such strong middle order can’t be made in matter of months but it requires hard work of years of which our cricket management want to scamper that and want to have pie in return!

Even an intermediate level student works much harder than these current so called Pakistan Cricket Board Management!

Politics politics…

Don’t treat Pakistan Cricket and Pakistan as your home born thing!

Am I looking stupid enough to understand things without facts and figures? These fatigued Pakistan Cricket Board thinks so! It doesn’t matter for these PCB guys either Pakistan looses a test match or win, all they counter is how much money they’re generating from the off-shore home series in England. Literally! at the time when Pakistan was chasing a mammoth 440 runs target with 8 wickets already down, Chief Executive of Pakistan Cricket Board, Wasim Bari was exclaiming the amount of profits they’re going to get from hosting a test series in England! What a rubbish! Was that the right time to show your excitement?

Secondly! on criticism on selection procedure, the selection committee head Mr. Mohsin Khan, whom I had great respect till he applied for this job, again yesterday fumed at the media personnel when asked about the biased attitude in selection of players! Literally he used such terms that he was ignored as he was a Karachiiete and they (whom he not mentioned) ignored him for two years and made him the 12th man who’d give water bottles to the players! With due respect Mr. Selector but did this justify the unfairness in selection? Ignoring top notch players who COULD play in England and have vast experience of it (remember when Pakistan last played in England, Mohammad Yousuf was by far the best among remaining 4 batsmen in the batting order), and you justify it by gathering sympathies by telling your own 20 30 years ago mis-happening with you! IS THAT JUSTIFIED?

Not selecting players on merit telling we’ve to search for new players, so first strengthen your domestic circuit like India and Sri Lanka did in the region and than introduce new talent in international arena else it’ll backfire it! you can’t blame media for not putting your mishap under the carpet…

3rdly Salman Butt the dashing Pakistani opener who has been in great form with the bat these days has been NOMINATED (mark my words not appointed) as the skipper for Pakistan’s later tour of England after the conclusion of current Pakistan Australia test series! I was reading one of the comments on Cricinfo.com that he doesn’t change his pajamas as Pakistani team changes its captain since 2009!

Keep in touch with regional team’s captain, start with India. Mahindra Singh Dhoni and Shoaib Malik were appointed skippers at the same time for their countries for the ICC world T20 in South Africa 2007. Since than Mahindra Singh Dhoni has retained his captaincy although India didn’t cruise to second round or the semis in later T20 tournaments played in England and West Indies respectively! On the other hand, After Shoaib Malik, We had Younus Khan (which I still presume was the best captain of all, he just had hard luck with players because a manager took the side of rebels), Mohammad Yousuf and now Shahid Afridi. We should admit and ashamed of the fact that we’ve wasted them…

I just wish this government and this cricket board both are to be dislodged as they both know nothing how to plan ahead! After seeing what happened in the first test, indication shown that Mr. Chairman Pakistan cricket board wants Mohammad Yousuf in the team which would play against England! How pathetic! Narrating the same words of our chairman of selectors that;

Play for the country but don’t play with the country!

as I don’t know whose playing with whom!

May god bless us all!

Heavy work to be done!

Will test cricket in Pakistan survive?

After a pathetic performance in the first innings of the test match with the bat by Pakistanis, they’re starting to show some form in the second innings while chasing a mammoth 440 to win in two days time, with already 114-1 with Salman Butt playing on 58 and Azhar Ali the debutant playing on 28.

I am as my previous articles state that not very optimistic regarding a positive result in favour of Pakistan but still they should capitalize it by learning how to stay on the wicket! Every team in current test playing lot knows how to minus Pakistan. Sorry to say but no test century has been scored by any Pakistani since Imran Farhat’s 117* v New Zealand @ Napier on 11 Dec 2009. Do our players know how to stay on the wicket? Do they know the importance of staying on the wicket with limiting your shot play important in test matches? I don’t think else if they had, (the management, board and the cricketers), we may not have loose the Galle test, the Sydney Test and some pathetic performance by our Seniors in the test opener played at the Lords, you can give some space to juniors as they’re alien to these conditions and hearing and learning about some place is another thing and to experience is anything, other than Salman Butt, did the two seniors Afridi or Kamran Akmal justified themselves? The stage at which Afridi arrived if he had stayed on the wicket and supported Butt than we might have had a little deficit compared to a mammoth 105 overall lead.

Now as the elders say time wasted cannot be recovered but can be compensated by means of sensible batting in the second innings as there’s a lot of time but you have to keep the wickets save till the last day! Else I think if Pakistan accept the result in favour of Aussies than the limited test interest in Pakistan would also be blown away.

Too little too much…

Shane Watson took his first test Fiver

Like I said, I wasn’t over-expecting from their current performance with the Duke ball, but now when they started to bat, Aussies showed why they’re a tough side to beat. Even defending a par score of 250 odd runs, they managed to bowl Pakistan out inside the deficit with starting the second inning on high by getting an overall lead of 105, for that too we should thank Salman Butt for his inning because of which we were able to reduce the deficit closer to 100 run mark.

Else I don’t watch live test matches much but whatever I saw 127 for 7 wickets, I switched off the TV (prior to the reason that an annoying PEPCO auntie will appear on the screen telling me to switch off extra lights and use A/C on 26 degrees.. dumb-ass)

Returning to Cricket, now when I am writing this thing, the second day play has been finished which clearly belonged to the Aussies as they were able to finish Pakistan’s batting in a day and than again were batting with a lead of 105 and now when the day’s game over, Aussies have a lead of 200 runs and still 3 days game is left and 6 wickets for Aussies remaining!

I just hope Pakistan able to save this test match as literally without excuses, we were without such batsmen who know how to stay on the wicket, Asim Kamal, Faisal Iqbal, Younus Khan, Mohammad Yousuf to name some! Plus no grooming for replacement of such players can be seen and we’re heavily relying on the raw talent being produced on this land!

As far as the test match concern, Pakistan has the sniff chance but very difficult even than as Aussies have already managed to extend the lead touching 200, and with out batters batting in tendency for stroke playing instead of staying on the wicket and stroke on the badder balls, they tend to stroke every ball, and in such circumstances if Pakistan saves the match would be a greater achievement and should cease think of a positive result from this test!

Well played but…

First day of the Lords test clearly belonged to Pakistan

It was a worth test match to watch, with two Muhammad’s strike early and let the ball to to talk in windy, cloudy and seamy conditions just like we’ve here in Karachi these days, although not as cold but still, but Pakistanis pacers maneuvered the balls wherever and whenever they wanted, although fight from Clarke, Punter and Katich were seen but on the whole, it was more Pakistani bowlers on the Lords Cricket Ground than the Aussies Batsman.

Just before the first days tea, although Aussies had scored 170 odd runs but Pakistani bowlers chipped in with the wickets at regular intervals, and now the second day would be started by Mike Hussey and Australia’s last batsman Doug Bollinger, who was responsible for a match saving and later match winning inning with Mike Hussey at Sydney during the new year’s test match.

Now when Pakistani bowlers have fired, its time for Pakistani batsman to take the first inning leads and to give Australia something of a pressure, while talking of pressure, some pressure has already been exerted by the Aussies to the Pakistanis, not by their cricketers but by their article writers, because the incident they’ve been referring to was just an accident, when Muhammad Aamer being with his follow through went passed Punter with Aamer’s elbow brushing him, can’t they remember how they treated Pakistani players, not going too far, at the World T20 played in West Indies, Kyle Mills when his appeal was rejected in a Super 8 match played at Barbados against Salman Butt, Mills deliberately went closer to the batter to inquire, was that his domain than? He went that closer to be man-handled, so with due respect I’d just say that don’t try to teach us how to treat when you yourselves are involved with it too. Sledging is also above the law in ICC’s code of conduct but still Aussies have been the past masters of this techniques.

Peace!