Showing posts with label world cup cricket. Show all posts
Showing posts with label world cup cricket. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

Third Umpire: Cricket, 30% Talent 70% Attitude.

 In fairness the by line of Talent and Attitude is borrowed from the lovely game of basketball, with a small change in the play of words, it applies to the Pakistan cricket team aptly. Losing and wining is part and parcel of any sport, the crucial question is the manner in which you lose and most importantly what do you learn from your short comings. Ever since following the Pakistan team one has had to accept this team can surprise one when least expected and disappoint us in equal measure. 

Six months before the current World Cup campaign there was a feeling that the team possessed a penentrating pace attack, (two or three wickets in the first ten overs) and a decent but not spectacular spin and an enviable top order batting line up. In the Asia Cup, prior to the current competition, the defeat to India seemed to have not only dented these perceptions but severely damaged them. Fast bowlers hunt in pairs, and Naseem Shah being sidelined can partly explain the wheels falling off the sting of the pace attack. But then we always boasted of depth in our battery of pace bowlers, and while Hassan Ali, surprisingly has stepped up, the previously dependable pacers have lost their mojo. Haris Rauf is hell bent of breaking the world speed record and forgetting what price he has to pay in runs for that.

It has been some time since Pakistan possessed world class spinners, and while Shahdab can have a few great outings, the consistency is sorely absent. In the batting department the team rested on the twin shoulders of Babar Azam and Mohammed Rizwan, with the odd man standing up and being counted. If either one failed the task of batting to the objectives become twice as hard, if both failed the team failed. While Abdullah Shafique may have plugged some of the gaps at the opener level, the problem remains at the middle order where no one is dependable enough to hold the fort and then take the battle to the opposing bowlers. Why batsmen like Babar, Kohli, Warner and few others excel is because fundamentally speaking they have a good technique. The ability to adjust their approach is an element of their technique allowing them to play each ball on its merit. The middle order on the other hand even when they may have technique have a misplaced approach. The mentality is to slog their way out of trouble, rather than keep the scoreboard ticking along. 

Over lay these bowling and batting disasters with perhaps the shoddiest fielding by any side in the modern day game of cricket and you have a biryani that will be tasteless and destined for the rubbish bin. Dolly catches dropped, straight forward fielding mistakes giving boundaries and a general lack of application in the field are visible through 50 agonizing overs of spills and mishaps. In fairness over the recent years fitness of the players has improved, but with it the improvement of fielding skills has been lacking. 

Failures happen to the best bowlers and batsmen and this is part and parcel of the game. The fundamental problem with the team remains ATTITUDE. When pace bowlers are being hit all over the park they don't adjust their line and length till atleast two overs of misery have passed. The bowlers don't seem to read the conditions and forget the cardinal rule that when things are not going well go to wicket to wicket bowling, nothing sexy nothing fancy. Leadership remains a major worry; Babar Azam is a great player but his captaincy skills leave a lot to be desired. Rarely does he walk up to a bowler being battered to guide him or encourage him. His bowling changes are strange at times, and when there is the need to attack his field settings are defensive. Perhaps the burden of captaincy added to the need to perform is too much for his shoulders. 

With three defeats Pakistan needs to win all the remaining matches and hope a result here or there in other matches goes their way. However getting into the final four will need more than divine intervention, prayers and hope. The mental approach of all the players will need to be totally focused and positive. The plan for each match will have to be carefully put into place with a Plan B and even Plan C in place should things not go the way they want. Playing to the conditions is very important, and this essentially means that Indian wickets are unforgiving for wayward bowling and this is where the difference has been for teams like India and South Africa. Both teams have bowled not as they love to bowl elsewhere in the world but simply kept it simple and uncomplicated letting the batsmen make the mistakes. 

Prior to the tournament I felt that England was the best balanced side and perhaps my favorites for the Cup. Their bowling, much like Pakistan's tried to search for the seam and swing which was only available on Indian wickets is sparing sessions. The failure to then adjust the attack has meant that both teams have lost their way in this campaign. I am not sure we have a world class mental coach for the team but at this stage what the Pakistan team, (and the England team) need most is a change in the mental approach to the games that are left. 



Sunday, June 16, 2019

Third Umpire: Pakistan Team Overhaul

Let it be said straight up, India outplayed Pakistan in every department of the game. More than batting, bowling or fielding, India had a game plan, rehearsed over the past five odd years down to a science; players groomed for the event well before rather than just slotted in a few weeks before. In an earlier blog I framed England and India as the two strongest teams, and Pakistan with a slim chance to make it to the last four depending on which side showed up for each match.

In honesty this clash with India was lost by Pakistan in the match before where they lost to Australia in a game they could have won. What Pakistan lost in the game against the Aussies was also the temperament to play the close hard games. If the Aussie game had been clinched, which it could have, then a more positive Pakistan would have turned up.
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We hear the pundits tell us that individually the players in green have the talent and the skill to play top class cricket, but collectively it somehow just does not gel! Three essentials lack in the Pakistan camp, leadership on the pitch, lack of a game plan, and a haphazard selection to the playing XI.

Lack of Leadership:

Captaincy is not merely barking out orders to the fielding side, its all about reading the moment, the situation and making the right tactical  choices to gain an advantage on the field of play. Lets take Hassan Ali as case in point. School team coaches will tell you that his is not approaching the task with any conviction other than to bowl fast and all over the place. On average in each over he barely managed to put the ball in the right place other than once, if that. The leadership was so absent at these moments when he was leaking runs that the captain never really told him t adjust his line and length. Leadership in terms of setting the right field and the right players in the positions they field at best was highlighted when in the Aussie game Asif Ali replaced Babar Azam (a specialist slip fielder) in the slips and presto he dropped a sitter of a catch!


Lack of Game Plan:

Okay admitted that reading the pitch wrong and electing to field first can happen to most captains. But Sarfaraz should know that chasing against India, apart from the emotional pressure is not one of our key points. Once having put India in to bat and only Amir had a thought process to his bowling. Hassan Ali, to some extent Wahab Riaz and Shadab had no plan to their attack. Shadab's first over was pedestrian to say the least and it became clear that if there was a plan only Amir read it. As for the others it was simply turn up, throw the ball where it lands and call it a day.

In the batting both against Australia and India, if there was a plan it was more a matter of individuals etching out short durations of such a plan. While selection of the team may be questionable, the ones playing on the day were touted for their experience. Surely knowing that having just lost two set players a three to four over consolidation phase would be in order?


Selection:

Since the tour to England started the whole approach of the selection committee has been a joke. We are into the fifth game of the World Cup and still there is not set playing XI with changes coming match after match. If people like Sohaib Malik were selected for their experience even though their performance in the past year or so have been terrible, where did that experience show in the matches thus far? If you want experience call Yunus Khan out of retirement, or perhaps Inzi himself can don some pads on?

Prior to the England tour the main playing XI should have been finalized and then during the tour final adjustments should have been made. In the batting side it is clear we do not have a finisher who can take the game to the end with power hitting, but backed by a technique so its not just slogging. Asif Ali was meant to play the role and in a sense given the on and off approach to each match, he has not had a place in the team. Our middle order is brittle and that is where Harris Sohail should have been retained in the main XI. These two should replace Hafeez and Sohaib who would come in only if there were injuries to others. Hassan Ali should either be given a final outing to see if he has the intelligence to bowl to the conditions or not. While I am not sure why an untested Husnain was taken only on the basis he has speed, given the team is what it is he cannot do worse than say Hassan Ali?

The truth is that the selectors have to bear the burden of this imbalanced side they have sent to the World Cup. They have to answer for the fact that why was the team selection put in place a year earlier and then groomed into playing as a team and not individuals. None of the mature teams who are  serious contenders for wining the World Cup cut and chop their team on a match by match basis.


For the remainder of the World Cup with very slim chances to make the last four, the Pakistan camp should be brave and bite the bullet and let there be changes they will stick to through the rest of the tournament. On the side lines we must see how England and India have planned their campaign and how a year before they were pretty certain of the 15 or 18 players they would take and who would be the core back bone of the team.  For Pakistan we should not pride on the label of being mercurial, to me its a polite way of saying 'lost' and 'living on hope'. The only hope I have is after this world cup a true rebuilding process starts and this trial and error approach needs to be buried with the hope we had of reaching the last four, which was always hanging by its finger nails.