3rd ODI - Batting Analysis - Pakistan v West Indies - 11th April 2017

[CricketingMinds]

My previous two posts focused on Pakistan's batting performance in the 1st and 2nd ODIs. See those here:

http://www.pakpassion.net/ppforum/s...ting-Analysis-1st-ODI-West-Indies-vs-Pakistan

and

http://www.pakpassion.net/ppforum/s...nalysis-Pakistan-v-West-Indies-9th-April-2017

Now, lets shift focus to the third and final ODI played against the Windies on 11th April where Pakistan chased down 234 (making 236) in 43.1 overs.



Shahzad

Really poor series for him. Same problems that he had before - slow starts - lack of consistency to convert good starts into solid runs.
Shahzad keeps "bettering" his dot ball % match-by-match:
1st ODI - 53% dots
2nd ODI - 80% dots
3rd ODI - 85.71% dots.

Saj has one thread going on from 2014 where he calls out Shahzad as the King of Dot Balls. I think he truly deserves this title.

Kamran

The less I talk about Kamran, I guess the better it is for the fans. A Golden Duck speaks volume.

Lets not forget his gifted ability to drop chances.

Hafeez

I am not a Hafeez fan, but credit to this guy for taking the opportunity with both hands and making sure he gets selected for the CT in Summer.

Nevertheless, again, a very high dot-ball % - 55.81 - but as in the 1st ODI he covered up for it by smacking 10 boundaries (8 x 4s; 2 x 6s) and scoring 54% of the runs in boundaries.

One thing that kind of ticked me off while watching the game yesterday was when Hafeez got out, he was raising his bat as if he has won the game for Pakistan. To me that shows the selfishness in Hafeez - because the game was far from won - Pak still needed another 85 runs and knowing Pakistan's batting fragility, the game is never won till its won.
A Joe Root, Smit, Kohli, Williamson batsman would have been disappointed and smacking their bats on pads and showing frustration at getting out at such a crucial juncture of the game - because they are Champions who want to win the game for their team. They strive to be the finishers & never be satisfied with an incomplete sort of an innings.
This mentality is what differentiates Hafeez and other true champions who play for the Team vs Playing for themselves.

Nevertheless, Thank you Hafeez for a decent innings yesterday and securing your ticket to CT 2017.

Babar

A rare failure for the youngster. He really seemed to be struggling middling the ball yesterday. Played 15 dots out of 22 balls he faced - a very high dot ball % of 68.18%

Not a performance Babar should be proud of.

Malik

After a fantastic 50 off 37 balls in 1st ODI, Malik played a very strange and unusual innings in 2nd ODI. However, the experienced campaigner came back with a well-deserving century - his 9th in ODIs and 2nd vs WI.

After Babar's rare early departure yesterday, somebody needed to play the anchor role and Malik did that extremely well. He credited Hafeez for taking the pressure off him, but I feel Malik was better at rotating the strike:

51.35% dot balls compared to Hafeez's 55.81%
45.54% runs scored in 1s/2s compared to Hafeez's 38%

Sarfaraz

I have been saying this for a long time but this guy is the best we have who knows the art of Strike Rotation and doesn't consume a lot of dots.

Once again, Sarfaraz had the lowest dot ball % of 26.92% only - 7 out of 26 balls were dots.
The best part of his innings was that he was always looking to take 1s/2s. He scored 83% of the runs in 1s/2s - and had a very valuable contribution to Pakistan's win yesterday. We all know if he had gotten out early, the pressure would have mounted on Imad, Shadab and Malik and who knows how the results would have turned out.

He still needs lots of work to do in terms of ODI captaincy, but an impactful, smart innings here by the skipper.

Conclusion

Sadly, Pakistan did not show any improvement in the Dot-Ball-% area in the three ODIs. In all three games, the total dot ball % hovered around 47-53% which is considerably high for today's standard.

Strike rotation seems to be a lost art - especially for our master-blaster-openers (Kami & Shahzad).

If Pakistan is to put up any fight against a quality opposition in English conditions, then these aspects of the game really need to improve.

Please do share your opinion. I will be posting a FULL SERIES ANALYSIS (On Batting) soon.

 

[Yaasir]

Brilliant analysis. Again goes to show, Sarfaraz is not a big hitter of the ball but can keep the scoreboard ticking which the likes of Babar Azam lack. Getting off strike is so important in the shorter format of the game. I really hope this is the end of the line for Shahzad and Kamran. They were absolutely pathetic in T20 and ODI series.

 

[cricketInsight]

Sarfraz needs to bat 4 especially because Shehzad, Azam and Hafeez all have slow starts and by the time Sarfraz comes to the crease the situation is generally asking for more than strike rotation.