Do we expect too much from our youngsters?

[Attiq_Lone]

Sometimes I feel that we expect too much from our youngsters, especially young batsmen. Other countries groom their players by allowing them to play at home, and when they are selected for overseas tours, they are better prepared than our younger players.

We have been playing cricket on UAE’s dead pitches, where batting is pretty easy, and bowling rather difficult, and probably that is also the reason why our bowling performs better than batting in overseas tours. For example players like Fakhar Zaman, Imam ul Haq, Babar Azam or Shan Masood, Abbas, Shaheen, are touring South Africa for the first time, and we can see that our bowling has performed way better than our batting. When you are exposed to more difficult conditions, you learn a lot, and when you get easier conditions, or conditions that favour you, you are able to perform better. This is the case for our bowling and batting.

While our fast bowling, is exposed to difficult bowling conditions of UAE, our batting is exposed to easier batting conditions, and when we tour countries like Eng, Aus or SA, especially SA where the bounce is higher than any other country, our batsmen struggle and our bowlers don’t.

We select our younger players with lack of A Team tour experience, and we give them the opportunity to play on alien conditions, and then we expect immediate results. For me Imam and Babar have not failed, it is a learning curve for them, it is unfortunate that these talented guys play for a mismanaged board like PCB.

To be honest If we ask the Indian cricket team to play 80% of their matches in UAE and then tour other countries, they will also fail like us.

The bigger responsibility of our defeat or non-performance, lies on senior players like Azhar, Shafiq and Sarfraz. When your most senior batsmen with so many matches played in different conditions and so many years, are not able to perform, what should your expectation be from players that are in their first year of Test Cricket?

We as Pakistani fans are also not very supportive to our youngster, we do not back them enough and we never analyse the factors of their failures, but what we analyse is how much they fail.

 

[MenInG]

Sometimes I feel that we expect too much from our youngsters, especially young batsmen. Other countries groom their players by allowing them to play at home, and when they are selected for overseas tours, they are better prepared than our younger players.

We have been playing cricket on UAE’s dead pitches, where batting is pretty easy, and bowling rather difficult, and probably that is also the reason why our bowling performs better than batting in overseas tours. For example players like Fakhar Zaman, Imam ul Haq, Babar Azam or Shan Masood, Abbas, Shaheen, are touring South Africa for the first time, and we can see that our bowling has performed way better than our batting. When you are exposed to more difficult conditions, you learn a lot, and when you get easier conditions, or conditions that favour you, you are able to perform better. This is the case for our bowling and batting.

While our fast bowling, is exposed to difficult bowling conditions of UAE, our batting is exposed to easier batting conditions, and when we tour countries like Eng, Aus or SA, especially SA where the bounce is higher than any other country, our batsmen struggle and our bowlers don’t.

We select our younger players with lack of A Team tour experience, and we give them the opportunity to play on alien conditions, and then we expect immediate results. For me Imam and Babar have not failed, it is a learning curve for them, it is unfortunate that these talented guys play for a mismanaged board like PCB.

To be honest If we ask the Indian cricket team to play 80% of their matches in UAE and then tour other countries, they will also fail like us.

The bigger responsibility of our defeat or non-performance, lies on senior players like Azhar, Shafiq and Sarfraz. When your most senior batsmen with so many matches played in different conditions and so many years, are not able to perform, what should your expectation be from players that are in their first year of Test Cricket?

We as Pakistani fans are also not very supportive to our youngster, we do not back them enough and we never analyse the factors of their failures, but what we analyse is how much they fail.

Youngsters from India are doing a fine job so its fine.

And what makes us think that pitches in Pakistan will be any better than UAE?

 

[Attiq_Lone]

Youngsters from India are doing a fine job so its fine.

And what makes us think that pitches in Pakistan will be any better than UAE?

Considering the standard of pitches seen in the QeA trophy, you might be right. But it is also the matter of crowd, We have almost no crowd, no one to back you, even the day psl matches are played in front of empty stands. Our players are not really exposed to crowd pressure in the UAE. When they tour other countries they get pressurised, because they are not used to it. There are a series of factors that actually affect their performance.

Even if the pitches are the same in Pakistan, there will be the crowd factor. Furthermore I really dont think pitches in Pakistan are as dead as in the UAE. The weather of UAE is hotter than Pakistan’s, there is a huge different in conditions too.

 

[SportsWarrior]

Considering the standard of pitches seen in the QeA trophy, you might be right. But it is also the matter of crowd, We have almost no crowd, no one to back you, even the day psl matches are played in front of empty stands. Our players are not really exposed to crowd pressure in the UAE. When they tour other countries they get pressurised, because they are not used to it. There are a series of factors that actually affect their performance.

Even if the pitches are the same in Pakistan, there will be the crowd factor. Furthermore I really dont think pitches in Pakistan are as dead as in the UAE. The weather of UAE is hotter than Pakistan’s, there is a huge different in conditions too.

To be honest crowd in Pak for Test matches is also nothing to write home about. I don't think Pakistan common man appreciates Test matches that much. I remember when India toured in early part of last decade it was not so great

 

[Attiq_Lone]

To be honest crowd in Pak for Test matches is also nothing to write home about. I don't think Pakistan common man appreciates Test matches that much. I remember when India toured in early part of last decade it was not so great

Indeed, but there has not been any test in a decade in the country, probably a return of test cricket in the country will attract more crowd in.