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Azhar Ali is a fighter!

Couldn't agree more. He gets so much hate, but if you actually consider his performances, you realise how consistent he actually is. The same thing happened to Misbah, he was scoring 50s every game pretty much, when the rest of the team could barely manage a combined total of 100, yet he was receiving all the hatred. Regarding Azhar Ali's "slow strike rate", not every player needs to have an 85+ SR. Azhar Ali's role in the team is to provide a platform, and that's exactly what he does. Players like Shoaib Malik, etc. have the role of scoring runs at a high strike rate, not A. Ali. He has done a fine job as a batsman. Yes, his captaincy, at times, has been questionable, but he doesn't have the bowlers of the same quality that Misbah did (Ajmal, Hafeez, an in form Afridi, Gul and Irfan). Definitely doesn't deserve the hate that he gets.
 
salih said:
Couldn't agree more. He gets so much hate, but if you actually consider his performances, you realise how consistent he actually is. The same thing happened to Misbah, he was scoring 50s every game pretty much, when the rest of the team could barely manage a combined total of 100, yet he was receiving all the hatred. Regarding Azhar Ali's "slow strike rate", not every player needs to have an 85+ SR. Azhar Ali's role in the team is to provide a platform, and that's exactly what he does. Players like Shoaib Malik, etc. have the role of scoring runs at a high strike rate, not A. Ali. He has done a fine job as a batsman. Yes, his captaincy, at times, has been questionable, but he doesn't have the bowlers of the same quality that Misbah did (Ajmal, Hafeez, an in form Afridi, Gul and Irfan). Definitely doesn't deserve the hate that he gets.
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Good post.
 
Azhar Ali is a misfit as captain. I dont mind him as a player but he cannot captain a team.
 
Azhar is a selfish player he only wants to cement his place in the team. Sarfraz should replace him he'll turn the team into a fighting unit.
 
sensible-indian-fan said:
This is not 90s where scoring at 90 SR needs supreme skills.

A few singles and occasional boundaries and 80-90 SR will be achieved unless the pitch is hard.

Accumulators are getting more and more useless every day in modern era.

Collapse or not, you gotta keep it at 80 atleast (unless the pitch conditions are bad enough to warrant scoring below it).

75 SR in 2016 is like scoring at 68 SR in 90s.

Useless.
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You're right.

But Azhar isn't our problem when other batsmen aren't scoring - let alone scoring at 100 or above strike rate.

It's absurd to call out Azhar and blame him in such a scenario. Batting from 1 to 7 is failing, not even scoring 40s, while Azhar is scoring 70s and 60s. Yes, not at 90+ strike rate.

So, tell me, who should be the last to be kicked out?

I can understand if it's a decent lineup, hitters around who are also capable of scoring, Azhar will be slowing the team down.

But here, he's actually making sure the ship is sailing, no?
 
Azhar is a problem because he plays for himself and fails to instill any fighting spirit in the team. An aggressive and competent captain is must have for a modern ODI team.
 
Hawkeye said:
You're right.

But Azhar isn't our problem when other batsmen aren't scoring - let alone scoring at 100 or above strike rate.

It's absurd to call out Azhar and blame him in such a scenario. Batting from 1 to 7 is failing, not even scoring 40s, while Azhar is scoring 70s and 60s. Yes, not at 90+ strike rate.

So, tell me, who should be the last to be kicked out?

I can understand if it's a decent lineup, hitters around who are also capable of scoring, Azhar will be slowing the team down.

But here, he's actually making sure the ship is sailing, no?
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He's clearly not the worst batsman but also for most occasions not good enough. Don't mean the rest of the team is good enough either of course. But an undeniably bad captain, who as such is negative influence. If you want go with a nautical metaphor I'd say he's ballast. Keeps things on an even keel but also weighs everything down. :)
 
Hawkeye said:
You're right.

But Azhar isn't our problem when other batsmen aren't scoring - let alone scoring at 100 or above strike rate.

It's absurd to call out Azhar and blame him in such a scenario. Batting from 1 to 7 is failing, not even scoring 40s, while Azhar is scoring 70s and 60s. Yes, not at 90+ strike rate.

So, tell me, who should be the last to be kicked out?

I can understand if it's a decent lineup, hitters around who are also capable of scoring, Azhar will be slowing the team down.

But here, he's actually making sure the ship is sailing, no?
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Yeah but I didn't say Azhar is the worst in the team.

Said it wasn't a great innings with respect to the topic of the thread.

But yeah...retrospectively this innings was a bit better than what I gave it credit for. Still could have been better. 80 runs at 75 SR won't work majority of the times these days unless the pitch demands it.
 
Pakprideuk said:
Azhar is a good ODI batsmen. You need him around your hitters. Sarfraz batting at a sR of 50 but thats not an issue. Its only an issue when Azhar bats like that. Neither is it an issue if Sami, Malik, Babar bat at that sort of SR. Only Azhar.
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Most of these guys rarely bat at this strike rate and all are capable of really upping the run rate when required. The problem with Azhar is the same as Misbah no singles. Look at how Root has batted in the series. He scores maybe 30-40 at 90-95 strike with 1 or 2 boundaries. Forget Root even Babar was batting with almost 100 strike rate without scoring many boundaries. He looses his wicket usually before he reaches the point where he can accelerate though. So if Azhar could start taking more singles instead of playing out maiden overs he would be someone hitters can play around without worrying about missing a ball.
Currently Azhar plays 3 dots then takes single his partner has no choice but to hit out to keep up with the run rate. If Azhar had taken a single on the first on 2nd ball his partner would not be under pressure to get a boundary and could play according to the ball.
In odi cricket your default has to be a single very good ball you play for dot very bad ball you hit for boundary. This problem is though with most of our top order batsman even Sharjeel is guilty of it. You keep playing dots the bowler keeps bowling the same line no pressure. You keep pushing for singles the bowler will give a bad ball the captain will change the field. You cant just keep letting the opposition to dictate terms and that's what Azhar Ali does and unlike misbah he is not even capable of really going after the bowling that Misbah was.
 
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Couch Cricketer said:
Most of these guys rarely bat at this strike rate and all are capable of really upping the run rate when required. The problem with Azhar is the same as Misbah no singles. Look at how Root has batted in the series. He scores maybe 30-40 at 90-95 strike with 1 or 2 boundaries. Forget Root even Babar was batting with almost 100 strike rate without scoring many boundaries. He looses his wicket usually before he reaches the point where he can accelerate though. So if Azhar could start taking more singles instead of playing out maiden overs he would be someone hitters can play around without worrying about missing a ball.
Currently Azhar plays 3 dots then takes single his partner has no choice but to hit out to keep up with the run rate. If Azhar had taken a single on the first on 2nd ball his partner would not be under pressure to get a boundary and could play according to the ball.
In odi cricket your default has to be a single very good ball you play for dot very bad ball you hit for boundary. This problem is though with most of our top order batsman even Sharjeel is guilty of it. You keep playing dots the bowler keeps bowling the same line no pressure. You keep pushing for singles the bowler will give a bad ball the captain will change the field. You cant just keep letting the opposition to dictate terms and that's what Azhar Ali does and unlike misbah he is not even capable of really going after the bowling that Misbah was.
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Lol. You do realize Azhar had a better strike rate than every partner he had yesterday....He was playing at 110 SR with Babar playing at 57.
 
I was talking about normally yesterday was an aberration look at the previous 3 matches. Yesterday probably played the best he has in sometime. But still too many dot balls which he might get away with on pitches like we had yesterday or we get in UAE but on real flat tracks wont be enough. Personally I don't think he needs to be dropped but he needs to change his game and become an accumulator as he does not have the powergame to make up in the later part of his innings.
These days a players plays a hundred balls he scores a hundred or get out in the 90s trying for the hundred. He cant be on 50 of 80-85 balls every match as he simply does not have the game to hit 50 of 15 balls to catch up. If he scores 70-75 of 80-85 that is okay as he is capable of making up the difference
 
sensible-indian-fan said:
Yeah but I didn't say Azhar is the worst in the team.

Said it wasn't a great innings with respect to the topic of the thread.

But yeah...retrospectively this innings was a bit better than what I gave it credit for. Still could have been better. 80 runs at 75 SR won't work majority of the times these days unless the pitch demands it.
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An innings like that needs a breakthrough opening burst and that doesn't happen everyday in modern odi's. He needs to step up. But definitely can't play Sami Aslam and him in the same line up
 
Square Drive said:
Maybe keep him as a batsman but definitely not as a captain.
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Agreed. I just cant say in words how much i dislike his captaincy style. And when i saw him giggling in the last ODI when Irfan was injured, that was like putting the final nail in the coffin as far as my opinion on his leadership is concerned. Not a bad batsman though only if he can score at a strike rate of 90 instead of 75.


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Second best batsman for Pakistan this difficult series.

Team combo was slightly better today, still room for huge improvement, and we won.

What it means is that he needs time, and should be given a proper ODI team which he can work on. Nobody can win with a really poor team.

We have too many one-dimensional players in the top 6-7 (including Azhar), need to get rid of at least 2.
 
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Hawkeye said:
Second best batsman for Pakistan this difficult series.

Team combo was slightly better today, still room for huge improvement, and we won.

What it means is that he needs time, and should be given a proper ODI team which he can work on. Nobody can win with a really poor team.

We have too many one-dimensional players in the top 6-7 (including Azhar), need to get rid of at least 2.
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3rd best
Imad, Sarafatz and him
 
Hawkeye said:
Second best batsman for Pakistan this difficult series.

Team combo was slightly better today, still room for huge improvement, and we won.

What it means is that he needs time, and should be given a proper ODI team which he can work on. Nobody can win with a really poor team.

We have too many one-dimensional players in the top 6-7 (including Azhar), need to get rid of at least 2.
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Pakistan can get to top tier when Batsmen with real potential like Babar, Umar, Harris and Sharjeel start performing.

These guys Azhar, Sarfraz, Malik are very average player, later two cannot play pace at all. Today, slowness of wicket allowed them to flourish. It was quite telling that they attacking seamers as one play spinners, this is going to work 1 in 15 times, when wickets are really slow.

After all this hop halla they barely chase 300, when other teams chase this type of score, they do with with 7/8 overs to spare and 6 wickets in hand. For Pakistan getting over the line is problem. Most players have very limited skill set, all these seniors can only bash spinners, whole world knows that, they are not going to feed us spinners. You got to develop well rounded batsmen, otherwise happy to loose 4-1 type of series defeats and early exit in major tournaments.




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the warrior does it again. Showing great mental strength despite the criticism from the small minded.
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Good to see Azhar Ali back in form in ODIs. Worth remembering he's quickest Pakistani batsman to 1000 ODI runs (23 innings) <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Cricket?src=hash">#Cricket</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PAKvWI?src=hash">#PAKvWI</a></p>— Saj Sadiq (@Saj_PakPassion) <a href="https://twitter.com/Saj_PakPassion/status/783651330678284288">October 5, 2016</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
Didn't like the way he got out after scoring a 100, that was very selfish of him, he should've stayed on.. that's not way for a captain to end his innings.. He needed to get a big one here and strike rate should've gone above 100
 
Don't know how someone could possibly hate on the guy after the series he's had as a batsman.
 
street cricketer said:
I have become a fan!:azhar2 [MENTION=141114]Hasan123[/MENTION]
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They are all joining the club brother :msd

I don't know if you watched his debut series in England, but even though he didn't score loads of big scores you could see this guy had grit and determination to succeed.
 
Let me be honest I never liked him but he is batting way out of his skin and I feel I am corrected by him. I hope this is not just a golden patch but an improved batsman.

Need to get rid of ODI captaincy and just concentrate on his test match game with batting and a role of part time bowler to chip in with 10-12 overs a day.
 
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