Are the PCB management and coaching staff in panic mode?

[Rana]

Some of the long term investments, guys who the management have worked on for over a couple of years have been exposed against a brutal English batting line up and flat pitches.

Whilst I agree that some change is necessary, I disagree with the fact that a player is likely to be discarded due to one opposition. For example, who is to say that the toothless Faheem Ashraf we have seen in the last two games will not display any kind of performance against the much lesser sides in the world cup?

Secondly, Asif Ali has been included which is great (and necessary), but at the expense of someone who did not get the chance to show what he is capable of? So is Abid Ali going to sit out of the remaining 2 ODIs or will he play instead of one of the selected openers? If Abid plays tomorrow and scores a ton, a huge ton at Trent Bridge due to its ultra flat nature, what will this say about the PCB's decision to keep hold of Malik instead of Abid?

I personally feel that the PCB has exposed itself as weak, cowardly and are seriously in Panic mode.

 

[nam]

I don't mind dropping Abid Ali. Yes he has been treated very unfairly but he should not have been selected in the first place by selectors due to only one good performance..
I agree to persist with Faheem and give him plan/support to get things right.. we invested 2 years on him not just to drop him at this juncture..

 

[Chokli]

You reap what you sow.

If they had even an iota of intelligence they would have selected spinners in all the series' we've played in the UAE.

If they can't come to that conclusion, that spinners are needed, why does anyone actually expect something noteworthy from them?

It's rather pathetic to see such a set up for an International team.

 

[Titan24]

In my opinion they have been in panic mode for sometime now and they wouldnt have been retained till now if it wasnt for CT 17 and in recent times because of WC being so near.

I dont remember any team management making so many blunders, amateurish mistakes and still being retained.

 

[Stewie]

I don’t think it’s panic.. it’s more like co fusion.. they were expecting our batting to be the problem and not the bowling.. they were hoping to test people like asif but we all know they had their minds made up about malik and Hafeez. Now they must be pretty happy with the state of batting but all of a sudden now the bowling has fallen apart. I am sure they are now repenting not picking shinwari so they could at least test him .. and/or someone who can actually spin the ball...

 

[Zaz]

Like stewie said Theres a bit of "who should be in the final x1" confusion more than panic

The likes of asif and harris have made a case to displace malik and hafeez who were dead certs in a poor batting team - not anymore

And the bowling has been awful which make them think who are our best 3-4 bowlers

The make up of the final x1has been disturbed by our excellent batting and poor bowling

 

[jonny darko]

blunders after blunders .. bloopers after bloopers .. yet the current Management team continue to keep their job collecting fat paychecks. These "coaches/mentors" are an utterly clueless bunch who should have been fired from their job immediately after the embarrassing defeat at the hands of NZ, that too at home.

Every humiliating defeat demands answers from the managers & heads should've rolled. But when you refuse to wield the axe when it is necessary, you expose your weakness as an entity. Mickey & co. know their jobs are safe because "BoYz DeLiVeRed A TrOpHy" vs India.

The disgraceful results, shameful defeats, comical non-selections doesn't seem to bother anybody it seems.

The criminal non-selection of Usman Khan Shinwari who has served pakistan with distinction since his debut was criminally pathetic by Inzamam & co.

 

[Stewie]

I hope they have the guts to bench malik and imad.

The biggest worry is the failure of the so-called all rounders who are exposed and me bits and pieces players. Now they must really be swearing over the form and fitness of Shadab and hoping to God that Hafeez can produce the goods with the ball. I hope they try Hafeez and malik in the last two ODIs so they have some performances to compare. Malik I suspect will be dead weight in this squad.

 

[topspin]

This is inevitable when you don't rotate players. From the 2017 CT till now, we have only seen rotation of the squad in the last series against Australia. Too little too late for my liking!

One of the reasons why we don't rotate (like other teams do), is because of the toxic seniority culture, which will always hold Pakistan back from progressing.

Pakistan had ample time to come to the realisation that Sarfraz isn't fit to lead the side and make the team on merit. His fate should have been sealed after his conduct in the SA ODI series when he racially abused Andile Pheleukawayo.

Rizwan has achieved more than Sarfraz in a single ODI series, than he has contributed in the last two years. Heck even Hasan Ali has done more with the bat since 2018, as evident from their conversion rate to half centuries and the disparity in their strike rates.

Why wasn't Abid Ali given more chances? Imam has progressed well, but you can't help but feel Abid hasn't had enough chances to prove his true worth. Why is a 40 year-old who was never blessed against pace bowling selected for the WC in England? - where he averages 13!

Why have we not developed any spinners? - why weren't the likes of Zafar Gohar, Mohammad Asghar, Usama Mir and etc not tested out?

To end this rant of mine, why are we playing our full strength side in meaningless T20Is against the likes of Zimbabwe, Scotland, Ireland, weakened WI and SL sides? These kind of matches are golden opportunities to test the bench strength. With this approach it is apparent there is no vision of succession planning among the think tank or even developing teams in the short-term.

 

[Red Devil]

I don't mind dropping Abid Ali. Yes he has been treated very unfairly but he should not have been selected in the first place by selectors due to only one good performance..
I agree to persist with Faheem and give him plan/support to get things right.. we invested 2 years on him not just to drop him at this juncture..

Why would you want to persist with mediocrity? Especially in these conditions where his bowling is completely ineffective and will always be criminally expensive? His career bowling average is 66 against non-minnows and his batting average is 12.

Why would anyone in their right mind want to persist with that?

 

[IMMY69]

The biggest mistake was picking Yasir in the Aussie series and then confounding it by bringing him to England.

 

[Titan24]

Like stewie said Theres a bit of "who should be in the final x1" confusion more than panic

The likes of asif and harris have made a case to displace malik and hafeez who were dead certs in a poor batting team - not anymore

And the bowling has been awful which make them think who are our best 3-4 bowlers

The make up of the final x1has been disturbed by our excellent batting and poor bowling

If only it was the confusion regarding the playing XI then that would have been another matter but losing almost everything other than few T20s in last two years can create a bit of panic among the team management when their jobs are at stake especially when the losing streak in still on so close to the WC.

 

[Titan24]

I don't mind dropping Abid Ali. Yes he has been treated very unfairly but he should not have been selected in the first place by selectors due to only one good performance..
I agree to persist with Faheem and give him plan/support to get things right.. we invested 2 years on him not just to drop him at this juncture..

Mickey and Inzi persist with players until their performance prove them right while team suffers when it doesnt work out, selecting Yasir again even after horrible Aus tour is just one example. They are only dropping Faheem becz if the WC doesnt go well Mickey and Inzi wont even be there to prove their decision right.

 

[Savak]

Lol at the selection of Amir who has only 3 wickets in the last 14 ODI's, what is the guarantee he will not continue the same form?

To be honest Mickey Arthur should be sacked after the WC, he has no idea on how to select a squad, what a squad needs in the long run, he just operates on a reactionary day to day basis, the fact he did not groom a single proper spinner in the last 3 years is criminal.

 

[Savak]

Also why isn't Hasan Ali opening the bowling. Insanity is doing the same thing again and again and then expecting different results. When was the last time we had a pacer who produced a quick 3-4 wicket burst upfront apart from that one spell by Shaheen Afridi against South Africa. If you don't pick up early wickets you will not win games.

 

[Kianig89]

Panic is a word unheard off in PCB suitable word is Sleep mode/hibernation/airplane mode :neville

 

[saeedhk]

Why would you want to persist with mediocrity? Especially in these conditions where his bowling is completely ineffective and will always be criminally expensive? His career bowling average is 66 against non-minnows and his batting average is 12.

Why would anyone in their right mind want to persist with that?

Exactlyy. I just don’t understand how people can accept this gully player representing Pakistan. This guy has 0 talent with 0 cricketing IQ. Ashok Dinda is better than this useless.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

I don't think it is panic, just a slow realisation that they picked too many duds. I know Faheem is getting crucified now, but in one game last year he clean bowled two batsmen with balls which nipped back off the seam and hit top of off stump. These pitches need a bit more juice otherwise can't see any medium fast bowlers doing much, including Amir and Junaid. Maybe a pure pace option would have been a wiser call.

Yasir was just a stupid choice, even on spinning pitches he is a risk because he can't keep a consistent length. His record surely reflects that.

 

[Syed1]

Rested on their laurels post CT 17.


It's been 2 years to the tournament and the only new players who have debuted are Imam, Shaheen, Abid and Hasnain. The latter two hardly played a game or two.


So if a team stagnates its performance plummets which is evident in our results.

 

[nam]

Why would you want to persist with mediocrity? Especially in these conditions where his bowling is completely ineffective and will always be criminally expensive? His career bowling average is 66 against non-minnows and his batting average is 12.

Why would anyone in their right mind want to persist with that?

The real question is why did we persist with it for 2 YEARS!! only to give up two games before worldcup?

 

[nam]

I don't think it is panic, just a slow realisation that they picked too many duds. I know Faheem is getting crucified now, but in one game last year he clean bowled two batsmen with balls which nipped back off the seam and hit top of off stump. These pitches need a bit more juice otherwise can't see any medium fast bowlers doing much, including Amir and Junaid. Maybe a pure pace option would have been a wiser call.

Yasir was just a stupid choice, even on spinning pitches he is a risk because he can't keep a consistent length. His record surely reflects that.

I hope we get to play on some "used" pitches like champions trophy which will be a little slow pace and dry so cutters become effective also assist in a bit of reverse.. that's our only hope because we don't really have tear away pacers in the squad and the ones we have are pretty young at this level

 

[Red Devil]

The real question is why did we persist with it for 2 YEARS!! only to give up two games before worldcup?

It's never too late to get rid of mediocrity man. The WC is super important and I'd rather play the best eleven players we have instead of some jobber simply because we have been playing said jobber for 2 years.

 

[Chokli]

In 2009 we won after Razzaq came in the team out of nowhere.

In 2017 we won after Fakhar Zaman came into the team.

Recently we've never won a trophy with a settled XI, we've always won due to other reasons.

 

[Gullycricket]

This thrashing by England may even be good who knows.Dropping Faheem makes total sense as we wasting new ball with this useless player and actually playing with 10 players. However it should have happened much earlier. Maybe after SA series but we persisted and even after his poor performance against Australia they shielded him from last 3 games to prevent him from getting exposed which was criminal.
Our weaknesses is not batting TBH right now.On these flat pitches we will get runs. We need bowlers who can win matches and that's where Amir comes in. India would canter home in CT final if not for Amir as we saw with England.Asif should have been tested but it was a big blunder to give Faheem such a long rope.

 

[nap229]

I think micky, inzi and azhar all should be removed from the team. Just so we can start fresh again. And build a proper team for 2023 wc.

 

[Rana]

I think micky, inzi and azhar all should be removed from the team. Just so we can start fresh again. And build a proper team for 2023 wc.

Not sure about Mickey but Azhar Mahmood seems to have become a liability. Mickey for me is the best coach for Pakistan since Bob Woolmer. I love the guy's professional attitude and emphasis on discipline/fitness and work ethic.