Did Mohammad Wasim fail to provide Pakistan a strong bench for the tour to SA & Zimbabwe?

[Major]

While Pakistan has won all the series with M.waseem as selector, one thing that i saw an issue was that M. Waseem failed to provide us a strong bench.

Pakistan team was carrying too many bowlers while they had too little batsmen. Danish aziz, haider ali, asif ali, sharjeel khan, and sarfraz ahmed were all weak options.

Pakistan struggled in the middle orders as whoever came as replacement did nothing.

We should had dominated in both series yet we were taking it to the final over due to weak batting.

While you cant critisize m. Waseem as the team has won all series under him his selection fomititee, and he has selected some good spinners in our test series.

But i do think he has not been selecting correct t20 batsmen and been selecting too many bowlers

 

[Bigboii]

Loving it [MENTION=135038]Major[/MENTION]!

Already coming up with counter narritive so blame don't shift to Misbah

Ideas like these....
Genius

 

[Rana]

No

Wasim Khan failed to provide us with a proper coach

 

[Artaxerxes]

The selection was poor.Asif,Danish and Nawaz should not have been selected.

 

[silentkiller187]

There’s no game plan, seems like there’s no analysis or pre match work done, our players just turn up do dua and hope for the best it seems. If we want to keep Mishbah he needs to look after the test team only. Get a team in to look after our limited overs squad, maybe then players can develop because at the moment whoever comes in looks just as clueless as the last player.

 

[Mamoon]

The first team is a joke itself. Why worry about bench strength?

No point in having bench strength when they first-choice players themselves do not represent strength.

 

[world cup captain]

It goes to shows how many duds are playing in our domestic structure. Who could Wasim have selected that would have set the world on fire? Malik? Akmal bros? Asad Shafiq? Maqsood (lazy like Sharjeel)?

Saud was Haris' replacement who unfortunately got injured but he is a solid batter with domestic experience. Sarfaraz, although not a world-beater, is still a far better option than Asif. Asif's lack of intelligence won't allow him to score against school kids.

Although Misbah cannot be blamed for in-game performance, the lack of planning and team selection was nothing short than pathetic.

 

[Shafi]

Major and his obsession with Misbah continues. Some of the selection of M Wasim was poor but appointing Misbah and Waqar through fake advertisement by big talk Wasim Khan was even worse.

 

[Shafi]

The first team is a joke itself. Why worry about bench strength?

No point in having bench strength when they first-choice players themselves do not represent strength.

I thing PCB should install little bit strong filter to bar players like Khusdil, Asif, Danish, Haider... even in the domestic. These people actually have no future and we will not gain anything to have these players even in our domestic system. If we run out of better (Not concern about too quality which is missing) players reduce the number of team to 5+5 instead of 6+6.

 

[Yasir_ch]

LOL anything to defend that loser worst thing ever misbah ul haq.Everything wrong with Pakistan cricket for last 10 years is misbah's fault.He should be kicked out as soon as possible.

 

[Bigboii]

I thing PCB should install little bit strong filter to bar players like Khusdil, Asif, Danish, Haider... even in the domestic. These people actually have no future and we will not gain anything to have these players even in our domestic system. If we run out of better (Not concern about too quality which is missing) players reduce the number of team to 5+5 instead of 6+6.

Are you freaking serious
Have no future to an extent that you should bar him from domestic cricket

This is absolutely ridiculous and I don't think you can judge players and thier cielings...

 

[Hasan123]

The squad selection was pathetic for the middle order. Misbah has to choose from what the CS selects. Wasim should definitely get some blame.

 

[Bewal Express]

Its easier to say who shouldn't be there but much more difficult to actually give solutions. The batting outside Babar and Riz is pathetic. We have these players that don't have anything to offer and their replacements have even less and then we have fans that see every match as a WC final.

 

[KyoOne]

M Wasim in fact deserves appreciation for being pro-active and trusting young performers.

He dropped those who failed in previous several series (Khushdil, Ifti, Talat etc) and chose the top performers in domestics, guys like Asif, Dhani, Danish, Saud Shakeel and Sharjeel. He could easily have gone the Misbah route of selecting TTFs like Malik, A Shehzad, Kami, IK senior but he trusted the younger blood.

He is a breath of fresh air, unlike Misbah who keeps sticking to failed experiments (Naseem Shah, IK senior, Musa Khan, Yasir Shah in overseas tests, Ifti, etc) and selects players who have had abysmal domestic seasons (IK senior, Sherdil Khan, M Irfan etc).

I'm sure M Wasim will replace Asif, Danish will other domestic performers next series, where Misbah, in his languid ways, would have kept them for 3, 4 more series to start thinking of a replacement

 

[Markhor]

Its easier to say who shouldn't be there but much more difficult to actually give solutions. The batting outside Babar and Riz is pathetic. We have these players that don't have anything to offer and their replacements have even less and then we have fans that see every match as a WC final.

Exactly, Pakistan fans and journos are so quick to say ABC shouldn't have been selected but besides Imad, I don't know else would've made a difference to the batting.

Iftikhar, Malik, Khushdil, Talat, Shadab, Asif, Danish and Haider have all been tried in that middle order with poor returns.

It's much easier to attack the selectors than admit there's an appalling paucity of batting talent in the country - and that's thanks to multiple PCB administrations who've neglected our domestic and grassroots setup.

 

[hitthestump]

Personally i think M. Wasim did the right thing to experiment in this series.

Asif and Danish were pretty much the last two 'aggressive' batsmen to be tried from our domestic circuit. It isn't his fault they flopped alongside every other supposedly aggressive TTF tried in the last 2 years. It's a WC year and those slots are vacant, so he tried to fill them without resorting to Malik and Chacha. Fair play to him.

 

[shujaatraza]

The first team is a joke itself. Why worry about bench strength?

No point in having bench strength when they first-choice players themselves do not represent strength.

Maybe previous administration should have focused a little bit on domestic cricket as well

 

[Greenstorm]

Nah. MW has selected much better squad compared to the dross Misbah loser selected for NZ tour.

Apart from one or two selections, this squad was decent. It is the negative cricket that Misbah promotes is what is hurting our cricket.

 

[Titan24]

You mentioned weak options (Now weak as they were unable to perform) that were selected but, you didn’t mention who should have been in the squad. Everyone available in domestic structure has been tried other than maybe Imad as a batting all rounder at no 6. Surely you cant be suggesting to have Malik on bench at 40 years of age as if he is selected he should be playing as a stop gap option and not as someone you will have on bench.

Now the last name people can start calling for is Azam Khan and if he doesn’t perform, blame will again put on selector that he didn’t select the right team.

 

[Mrhandsome]

Mohammad Wasim is doing a good job. Sensible, positive and future oriented. We just happen to have thin stocks in talent right now. All these overhyped hacks like Danish, Haider, Asif aren't even 1/10th of our previous certified hacks like Farhat, Imran Nazir, Shahzaib etc

 

[Major]

I think you guys are not understanding my point.

Asif Ali and Sharjeel Khan were known to be a weak selection, Fakahar Zaman was a gamble. Sarfraz ahmed hasnt performed ever.

Haider Ali had also not performed

Instead, we had more options in bolwing with the likes of M.Waseem, that guy who debuted and Nawaz. Infact, there were even plans to send Zahid mehmood aswell.

What I believe Pakistan needed was batsmen. Having Imad Waseem would had made the bench strong.

Iftikhar was a better option as he avg in the 40s in t20.

There wasn't any flexibility in the bench. Haider, Asif and Danish were all the tullah options we had got.

 

[Major]

You mentioned weak options (Now weak as they were unable to perform) that were selected but, you didn’t mention who should have been in the squad. Everyone available in domestic structure has been tried other than maybe Imad as a batting all rounder at no 6. Surely you cant be suggesting to have Malik on bench at 40 years of age as if he is selected he should be playing as a stop gap option and not as someone you will have on bench.

Now the last name people can start calling for is Azam Khan and if he doesn’t perform, blame will again put on selector that he didn’t select the right team.

the guys who have been tried are the tullaybaaz players. The players who hit and miss.

 

[Omer2002]

What bench strength the whole team is a joke

 

[Major]

Exactly, Pakistan fans and journos are so quick to say ABC shouldn't have been selected but besides Imad, I don't know else would've made a difference to the batting.

Iftikhar, Malik, Khushdil, Talat, Shadab, Asif, Danish and Haider have all been tried in that middle order with poor returns.

It's much easier to attack the selectors than admit there's an appalling paucity of batting talent in the country - and that's thanks to multiple PCB administrations who've neglected our domestic and grassroots setup.

Iftikhar hasnt been as poor as fans claim him to be in t20s. He has done well, and should had been in the squad atleast.

My issue is, there was no point in tanking up the bowling, having a extra batsmen or two would had helped

 

[Rellu_Katta]

completely.... jokers like Asif & Daanish should not have been there in the 1st place... Sarfraz isn't needed

 

[RedwoodOriginal]

Bench strength? What about the first team?

And the answer is obviously yes

 

[Titan24]

There wasn't any flexibility in the bench. Haider, Asif and Danish were all the tullah options we had got.

I agree with this but, Wasim mentioned that in this squad one of Babar and Rizwan might be coming to middle order to strengthen that which wasnt that far fetched considering Babar played at 3 in Pak va SA as well. However team management had different ideas and I think better coordination could have been here.

Sarfaraz was selected for that role of extra anchor in the squad if required. Other than that we dont have any solid options in T20s, Saud and Haris Sohai are reasonably solid havent been much of T20 players let alone at no 5 or so.

Hussain Talat was one who I think could have been given another series as 3 T20s werent enough to give him on his comeback where he struggled against Shamsi like almost every other Pak batsman.

 

[Shoaibbtt]

I expect any of our team members to defeat Zimbabwe, the guys were rubbish on this occasion barring the bowlers who did a stellar job.

 

[Abdurmirr]

The funny thing about this thread is that it can be applied to any squad we pick and shows one thing: there is almost zero international class players in Pakistan.

Look I'm not saying this in an attempt to troll or be annoying but it is true. Last year we had people banging on about guys like Haider Ali, Abudullah Shafique, Khusdhil Shah, Naseem Shah and many others - basically the new generation of PCT which was gonna free us from the "dark" era of the 2010s and transform us into a cricketing heavyweight. Now look at each of those names today. All of these guys have failed big time on the international stage and we fans are always asking why were they selected?

We need to realise that the guys being selected are the best talents in our country and that therefore is a reflection on the scarcity of talent within Pakistan.

I do however agree with some posters that the current management is not allowing for some of the younger players to live up to their potential, however even under better management we would only see slight improvements with consistent performances against lower tier teams and occasional wins against the top 4.

This is the sad reality of a Pakistan cricket and will remain a reality until proper structural change occurs within our grassroots and coaching systems

 

[Mamoon]

Any player who doesn’t get selected is the savior, and any player who gets selected and inevitably fails is the wrong choice.

If Haider was not selected on this tour, our fans would now be banging about how he would have destroyed South Africa D and Zimbabwe but alas, Misbah doesn’t favor youngsters and selected his favorite Iftikhar instead.

We need to accept the reality – Pakistan is the least talented cricket nation in the world.

Our players have no talent, no skill, no intelligence. They are completely devoid of any class and match-awareness. They look and act like club level cricketers who have no clue what they are doing.

Abdullah Shafique was treated as a messiah of Pakistan batting and the long-term partner of Babar but his face was yellow out of nervousness against New Zealand reserve bowlers and he couldn’t put bat on ball. That is how undercooked our cricketers our. They are rabbit in headlights.

You make PPers the selectors of Pakistan and give them full liberty to pick their squad and we will still be rubbish.

 

[Major]

Any player who doesn’t get selected is the savior, and any player who gets selected and inevitably fails is the wrong choice.

If Haider was not selected on this tour, our fans would now be banging about how he would have destroyed South Africa D and Zimbabwe but alas, Misbah doesn’t favor youngsters and selected his favorite Iftikhar instead.

We need to accept the reality – Pakistan is the least talented cricket nation in the world.

Our players have no talent, no skill, no intelligence. They are completely devoid of any class and match-awareness. They look and act like club level cricketers who have no clue what they are doing.

Abdullah Shafique was treated as a messiah of Pakistan batting and the long-term partner of Babar but his face was yellow out of nervousness against New Zealand reserve bowlers and he couldn’t put bat on ball. That is how undercooked our cricketers our. They are rabbit in headlights.

You make PPers the selectors of Pakistan and give them full liberty to pick their squad and we will still be rubbish.

your going crazy for no reason.

Imad Waseem did not warrant to be dropped. Harris sohail did nothing to be dropped from the Odis. Iftikhar Ahmad has maitained a better avg in t20s compared to the rest of the tullas we played including Haider Ali.

Yes you are right, people wrere bashing team managemetn that Haider ali is not being played and asif ali was, and at the end of the day both failed.

My point is, atleast there should had been mroe flexibility in the batting bench. What we were witnessing was a rotation between haider, danish and asif. If one failed other was called up and we were hoping that he would perform.

 

[Nasty Naz]

I think you can quibble more with the ODI team because Haris and Imad weren't picked. The T20 team is pretty much full of regulars outside of Danish Aziz. Imad was the big obvious omission but everyone knows what he can bring. It made sense to give Nawaz, who is a better spinner a run of games because he may prove to be more valuable in India's turning tracks for the WC. Pakistan spin options are also very weak and limited.

It seems pretty clear they are trying to figure out who can be the finisher and really need 5/6 batsmen spot and it's been a lot of failure so far with Iftikhar/Malik/Khushdil/Talat all failing. And now, Asif/Danish/Haider joins them as well. Hafeez has failed spectacularly in SA & Zim too.

I still think Haider should be persisted with but potentially going with Sharjeel/Rizwan/Babar/Fakhar/Hafeez as top 5 may make sense. Instead of relying on Hafeez to be crucial in the middle order which over his career he has repeatedly proved he is just not reliable enough for it but he can certainly slog it at the end. Haider at 6 with those guys as someone who doesn't have to worry about batting long and can just slog it might be better for him assuming the batting lineup doesn't completely collapse.

I wonder what they'll next but it's pretty clear they are trying multiple different players at the middle order and they are all failing. Not exactly other domestic players to pluck from either.

 

[Bewal Express]

TBH if we played Babar,Riz and 9 bowlers we would get the same results. They have tried all that have been mentioned as the next big things and none offer more than mediocrity. I still think HA is worth playing and outside that we could drop all of them and put some others and it will make no difference.

 

[Farabi]

Any player who doesn’t get selected is the savior, and any player who gets selected and inevitably fails is the wrong choice.

If Haider was not selected on this tour, our fans would now be banging about how he would have destroyed South Africa D and Zimbabwe but alas, Misbah doesn’t favor youngsters and selected his favorite Iftikhar instead.

We need to accept the reality – Pakistan is the least talented cricket nation in the world.

Our players have no talent, no skill, no intelligence. They are completely devoid of any class and match-awareness. They look and act like club level cricketers who have no clue what they are doing.

Abdullah Shafique was treated as a messiah of Pakistan batting and the long-term partner of Babar but his face was yellow out of nervousness against New Zealand reserve bowlers and he couldn’t put bat on ball. That is how undercooked our cricketers our. They are rabbit in headlights.

You make PPers the selectors of Pakistan and give them full liberty to pick their squad and we will still be rubbish.

On what evidence are you making the claim that Pakistan is the least talented T20 team in the world?
Is is Pakistan’s best win rate of 64%? Or the highway number of wins in T20 history? Or Pakistan’s Longest streak of being no 1 ranked team? Or the current ranking of no4? 1 T20 WC and 1 final T20 Final?

 

[Farabi]

While Pakistan has won all the series with M.waseem as selector, one thing that i saw an issue was that M. Waseem failed to provide us a strong bench.

Pakistan team was carrying too many bowlers while they had too little batsmen. Danish aziz, haider ali, asif ali, sharjeel khan, and sarfraz ahmed were all weak options.

Pakistan struggled in the middle orders as whoever came as replacement did nothing.

We should had dominated in both series yet we were taking it to the final over due to weak batting.

While you cant critisize m. Waseem as the team has won all series under him his selection fomititee, and he has selected some good spinners in our test series.

But i do think he has not been selecting correct t20 batsmen and been selecting too many bowlers

Things that could improve:

1. Haris and Imad didn’t deserve to be dropped from the ODI squad
2. Kamran.G and Usman.S deserved a go in tests vs Zim
2. Stop selecting batsmen based on 1 or 2 good tournaments. Danish, Haider, Abdullah, and Asif need to grind it out in domestic for 3-5 years and earn their selection. Guys ahead of them are Talat, Sohaib, Ifti and Khusdil who deserved longer runs.

That said, he made some good selections like Sharjeel, Saud, Nawaz, Arshad, and Zahid.

I hope he learns from these mistakes.

 

[Saj]

It does worry me that we keep having to go back to Sarfaraz as a batsman and keep going back to Asif Ali and then on top of that we have the like of Sohaib Maqsood, Umer Amin, Khushdil Shah being mentioned.

Add to the mix Ifthikhar Ahmed and you can see why some are worried about the Pakistan middle-order.

 

[Farabi]

It does worry me that we keep having to go back to Sarfaraz as a batsman and keep going back to Asif Ali and then on top of that we have the like of Sohaib Maqsood, Umer Amin, Khushdil Shah being mentioned.

Add to the mix Ifthikhar Ahmed and you can see why some are worried about the Pakistan middle-order.

Not necessarily Saj. I think we have the wrong expectations with respect to selection of batsmen. Most Batsmen mature around 26-27 and peak in early 30s.
We debut batsmen too early and then label them as TTFs and discard them, some forever.
We should be persisting with Sarfaraz/Sohaib/Khusdil/Ifti/Talat right now.
Any batsmen who has placed <50 FC and <70 List A games, should be nowhere near the Pak team no matter how talented he “looks”.

 

[GreenKhan]

I agree . Talat and Khushdil deserve not to be written . The likes of Hafeez and Malik didn’t do anything worthwhile for about 60 games yet we have stuck with them even 15 years after they made their debut .

 

[King-Misbah]

Let's worry about the 1st team and less so about the bench. The team is very unbalanced at the moment and is reliant on the like too order (Riz, Babar and Fakhar). We really need the middle order to step up now, Hafeez needs to get his form back and we need another good bat so that we have a strong top 5. At this stage, Malik doesn't sound like a bad shout, it is very disappointing though. The likes of Haider, Danish Aziz are non performers and we need Imad back for some lower order fire power.

 

[ugem]

Maybe previous administration should have focused a little bit on domestic cricket as well

Exactly. Najam Sethi regime destroyed domestic cricket by conducting domestic Tournaments among 16 pathetic quality teams, Playing on green wickets where trundlers used to look like Mcgrath and spinners never came into play, and playing with third-grade quality locally made Duke Balls.

 

[Savak]

Wasim can only select the best players in the country. It's up to the players to make the most of their chances, opportunities and put in the hard yards. No one held babars or rizwans hands, they worked hard at their craft and kept themselves super fit with a disciplined work ethic, life style and commitment, respect to the game.

 

[Savak]

It all boils down to a lack of vision among the captain and coach. If they truly believe in a player and what he can do for the team, they will back and play him for ten consecutive games even if he gets loads of ducks provided they are truly interested in building a team for the future and not worrying about their jobs. But if the team management keeps sacking, benching players after two failures under pressure of saving their jobs, you will find players under more pressure playing for themselves than the team

 

[shamaan]

The selection was poor.Asif,Danish and Nawaz should not have been selected.

Nawaz did okay I would not say its a poor decision.

 

[shamaan]

The squad selection was pathetic for the middle order. Misbah has to choose from what the CS selects. Wasim should definitely get some blame.

Saud was originally selected for the squad if he played the middle order would have looked alot better but he got injured.

 

[shamaan]

your going crazy for no reason.

Imad Waseem did not warrant to be dropped. Harris sohail did nothing to be dropped from the Odis. Iftikhar Ahmad has maitained a better avg in t20s compared to the rest of the tullas we played including Haider Ali.

Yes you are right, people wrere bashing team managemetn that Haider ali is not being played and asif ali was, and at the end of the day both failed.

My point is, atleast there should had been mroe flexibility in the batting bench. What we were witnessing was a rotation between haider, danish and asif. If one failed other was called up and we were hoping that he would perform.

Haris has poor fitness who keeps missing tours due to this.he had a replacement in saud shakeel who stats in domestic is very good and has a good technique.