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Has Ahmed Shehzad completely lost his way?

JibranAnsari

JibranAnsari

Test Captain
Joined
Oct 13, 2010
Runs
47,110
Had a terrible PSL and now having a bad time in Quaide azam trophy as well. Has scored only 168 runs in 8 innings.
 
Turned 29 today.

Never say never in Pakistan cricket.
 
Umm maybe?

He's work on his fitness really well, improved himself in the field. But his batting has always been his Achilles heel despite the fact, he's a batsman, a opener and he's meant to be the aggressor. His lack of footwork, constant fishing outside offstump, constantly playing unorthodox shots and lack of commitment to improve his batting.

He's now 29 and should really be a the peak of his career and should have been a automatic selection in the team in all three formats, but like I said he's not been good and I like to assume his intl. career is done.
 
Hafeez is 40 lol

Akmal and Shehzad could make comebacks just like Hafeez and Malik did
 
I always felt that he had some ability and had a nice array of shots.

But the temperament was always questionable and after that blow to the head he has never been the same.
 
Somewhere in his career his game changed for aggressive and exciting to defensive and snooze worthy. Don't know what happened but I remember as a young player he used to take risks in the powerplay and get us off to flyers. Then suddenly he went into a shell, the fact that he cant rotate the strike to save his life meant that his defensive game got exposed even more. The Shahzad of Today reminds me of the Misbah. Tuk tuk starts and acceleration at the end, which is always too little too late, except he doesn't even have the consistency of Misbah. Its quite frustrating considering the talent he showed early on in his career.
 
Has any other Pakistani batsmen's performance fallen as much as Shehzad's, while still in their 20's?

It just seems like he's not interested in cricket anymore. Fully expect him to not be in the PSL next year, and he's probably not far from being dropped in QAE as well.

That said - in Paksitan no player is every truly finished. In fact I would be surprised if we never see Shehzad play for Pakistan again
 
I don't see Shahzad representing Pakistan again. While its true that the likes of Hafeez and Malik have made countless comebacks, we have to remember that it was at the time when Pakistan Cricket was at its very bottom. Throughout the 2010s we have seen little to no batting talent come out and stand head and shoulders above their predecessors. However these last 2,3 years a plethora of young Pakistani Batsmen have emerged, almost all of whom are Openers i-e Haidar Ali, Abdullah Shafique, Omair bin Yousuf, Imran Butt, Imam ul Haq, Muhammad Huraira, Zeeshan Malik etc. Moving forward I find it hard to see Ahmad make a comeback unless he goes through a major Hafeez like transformation and even then it would be hard for him if Haidar and Abdullah come good, which I have faith that they will.
 
Lmao to lose your way you need to be on the correct path in the first place! Do not think Shezzy boy was ever on the right path to begin with.
 
KoyoAli said:
Somewhere in his career his game changed for aggressive and exciting to defensive and snooze worthy. Don't know what happened but I remember as a young player he used to take risks in the powerplay and get us off to flyers. Then suddenly he went into a shell, the fact that he cant rotate the strike to save his life meant that his defensive game got exposed even more. The Shahzad of Today reminds me of the Misbah. Tuk tuk starts and acceleration at the end, which is always too little too late, except he doesn't even have the consistency of Misbah. Its quite frustrating considering the talent he showed early on in his career.
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Your post is based more on emotions and embellished nostalgia rather than on facts and statistics. If you look at the numbers, Shehzad’s record was similar under almost every captain. In fact his best period was under Misbah. Mind you even then his ODI average was in mid 30s
 
Slog said:
Your post is based more on emotions and embellished nostalgia rather than on facts and statistics. If you look at the numbers, Shehzad’s record was similar under almost every captain. In fact his best period was under Misbah. Mind you even then his ODI average was in mid 30s
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I don't know why some people think Shehzad was some aggressive player, who suddenly changed and became a defensive player. He has always been defensive. In his two best years in terms of SR, he struck at around 76. He never had a calendar year where he struck more than 76!
 
Slog said:
Your post is based more on emotions and embellished nostalgia rather than on facts and statistics. If you look at the numbers, Shehzad’s record was similar under almost every captain. In fact his best period was under Misbah. Mind you even then his ODI average was in mid 30s
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The Viper said:
I don't know why some people think Shehzad was some aggressive player, who suddenly changed and became a defensive player. He has always been defensive. In his two best years in terms of SR, he struck at around 76. He never had a calendar year where he struck more than 76!
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First impression is usually the last impression.

Although Shehzad played a couple of ODI against Australia in 2009, the first time people took note of him was on the 2010-11 tour of New Zealand.

He did bat aggressively and flamboyantly in that series with some amazing strokes. He scored a 50 at a SR of 160+ in one of the T20Is and took on Milne’s short balls who was bowling very rapidly.

In the ODI series he scored a century at a SR of 105 and batted at a SR of 100+ throughout the series.

He was (officially) 19-20 at the time and that is when the notion that he was an aggressive, fearless batsman was established amongst the fans.

Unfortunately, apart from 1-2 innings aside (hundreds vs SA 2013 and NZ 2014), he never batted at that tempo in ODI cricket again.

He became overly cautious and defensive. It was particularly painful to watch him during his 2013-14 run under Misbah where he would bat at a SR of 65-70 throughout the first half of his innings, and unless he would score big, his innings would suck the momentum out of Pakistan’s batting.

Whether it was fear of losing his place in the side or whatever, but he was clearly not batting with the same free mindset that he did in New Zealand in 2010-11.

It cannot just be the pitches and small boundaries because he never played like that in New Zealand again either.

Shehzad’s career is a bit of a tragedy for me and perhaps more so than Umar because he actually has good work ethic and works very hard on his fitness and fielding.
 
Mamoon said:
Shehzad’s career is a bit of a tragedy for me and perhaps more so than Umar because he actually has good work ethic and works very hard on his fitness and fielding.
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Wouldn’t you agree that his skill set, shot tarah and generally speaking, his ‘talent’, was much more limited than Umer’s though?
 
Slog said:
Wouldn’t you agree that his skill set, shot tarah and generally speaking, his ‘talent’, was much more limited than Umer’s though?
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Umar was definitely more talented, but Shehzad had the attitude and work ethic to bridge the gap.
 
Mamoon said:
First impression is usually the last impression.

Although Shehzad played a couple of ODI against Australia in 2009, the first time people took note of him was on the 2010-11 tour of New Zealand.

He did bat aggressively and flamboyantly in that series with some amazing strokes. He scored a 50 at a SR of 160+ in one of the T20Is and took on Milne’s short balls who was bowling very rapidly.

In the ODI series he scored a century at a SR of 105 and batted at a SR of 100+ throughout the series.

He was (officially) 19-20 at the time and that is when the notion that he was an aggressive, fearless batsman was established amongst the fans.
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Followed weeks later in the World Cup with:

1 off 18 v Kenya
13 off 23 v Sri Lanka
12 off 23 v Canada
10 off 16 v New Zealand
8 off 11 v Zimbabwe

He was an actor on the field and would dye his hair and try to come across as Afridi's best friend while taking his embarrassing selfies.
 
I ASSUME
He had a tough life with his dad passing away while i child. He had personality issues. As I said most o his problems were only in his head. He could bat. I think he has gone too down the hill. Even at age 29.
 
Mamoon said:
Umar was definitely more talented, but Shehzad had the attitude and work ethic to bridge the gap.
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This. Its tragic to see him this way. He needs to turn it around. Capability wise hes better than the likes of Shan Masood, Fakhar etc.
 
Gotham Cronie said:
Followed weeks later in the World Cup with:

1 off 18 v Kenya
13 off 23 v Sri Lanka
12 off 23 v Canada
10 off 16 v New Zealand
8 off 11 v Zimbabwe

He was an actor on the field and would dye his hair and try to come across as Afridi's best friend while taking his embarrassing selfies.
Click to expand...

Yep, it all went downhill for him starting with the World Cup. His only decent innings in that period was the hundred in West Indies in the May 2011 ODI series.

He did well as a T20I specialist in 2012-2013 which helped him get back into the ODI side where he scored runs but continued to bat in his shell.

The 2015 World Cup was basically the final in his LOI career coffin.

Having said that, he was treated harshly in Test cricket. He clearly didn’t deserve to be dropped on performance, but his failure in the shorter formats and disciplinary issues cost him his Test career.
 
Nadeemp said:
I ASSUME
He had a tough life with his dad passing away while i child. He had personality issues. As I said most o his problems were only in his head. He could bat. I think he has gone too down the hill. Even at age 29.
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Yes, he had a very insecurity personality and was always looking for a father figure and was overly keen to impress people he he admired.

He latched onto Afridi as soon as he got into the team, then later on he tried to become Pakistan’s Kohli and was always putting an act on the field.

I think he needed a mature person to guide him and channel his energies in the right direction. He was and is more coachable than Umar who was downright dumb.

He kept running into wrong people in the national setup. Afridi is a bad influence, Waqar was clueless and egoistic and Misbah always had problems with batsmen who didn’t have timid personalities and weren’t prepared to be his slaves like Azhar and Shafiq.

I think if someone like Woolmer or even Mickey would have got hold of him when he was 19-20, he could have saved him from self-destruction. By the time Mickey arrived in 2016, the damage was already done.
 
Mamoon said:
Yes, he had a very insecurity personality and was always looking for a father figure and was overly keen to impress people he he admired.

He latched onto Afridi as soon as he got into the team, then later on he tried to become Pakistan’s Kohli and was always putting an act on the field.

I think he needed a mature person to guide him and channel his energies in the right direction. He was and is more coachable than Umar who was downright dumb.

He kept running into wrong people in the national setup. Afridi is a bad influence, Waqar was clueless and egoistic and Misbah always had problems with batsmen who didn’t have timid personalities and weren’t prepared to be his slaves like Azhar and Shafiq.

I think if someone like Woolmer or even Mickey would have got hold of him when he was 19-20, he could have saved him from self-destruction. By the time Mickey arrived in 2016, the damage was already done.
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This is one of the best posts i have seen from you, friend!

Spot on analysis.

Think he can still turn it around?
 
Slim said:
This is one of the best posts i have seen from you, friend!

Spot on analysis.

Think he can still turn it around?
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Parenthood changes people and mostly for the better. I have seen lazy people turn into workaholics after becoming fathers because the well-being of their children becomes their number one priority.

Shehzad has maybe 6-7 years of professional cricket left in him, he needs to maximize whatever that is left and make as much as he can for his wife and kid.

Maybe he can use that motivation to perform in PSL and various leagues around the world, but I don’t see him staging a comeback at the international level.
 
Slog said:
Wouldn’t you agree that his skill set, shot tarah and generally speaking, his ‘talent’, was much more limited than Umer’s though?
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Shehzad was only good when the ball was in his zone. His reactions were pretty slow otherwise, so no comparison with Umar.

Umar on the other hand was an elite batting talent in terms of physical ability. He had a powerful core, great co-ordination and unreal reactions to the ball.

In terms of ability, he was babar azam on steroids and could have been the successor to ab devilliers.

But the problems with him are in his mind. On top of having psychological issues, he is a genuinely dumb person, with a poor attitude, and absolutely
no self reflection and ownership of mistakes- almost to the point of being deluded.
 
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Pacy with wisdom said:
Shehzad was only good when the ball was in his zone. His reactions were pretty slow otherwise, so no comparison with Umar.

Umar on the other hand was an elite batting talent in terms of physical ability. He had a powerful core, great co-ordination and unreal reactions to the ball.

In terms of ability, he was babar azam on steroids and could have been the successor to ab devilliers.

But the problems with him are in his mind. On top of having psychological issues, he is a genuinely dumb person, with a poor attitude, and absolutely
no self reflection and ownership of mistakes- almost to the point of being deluded.
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slow down a bit my friend. U Akmal had talent no doubt, but you are over exaggerating quite a bit. He had a lot of potential but not even close to ABDv. If he was such an elite talent then he would have had some sort of success despite his attitude.
 
I wish him well for future , frankly i dont want to see him in the limited overs side but in test cricket our opening alots are always up for grabs. We have had 23 openers since saeed anwar retired.
 
KoyoAli said:
slow down a bit my friend. U Akmal had talent no doubt, but you are over exaggerating quite a bit. He had a lot of potential but not even close to ABDv. If he was such an elite talent then he would have had some sort of success despite his attitude.
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I am not exaggerating. That is your opinion.
Physical ability is one thing, but then you need intelligence and work ethic to further improve your capacity.

Ab devilliers when he started in 2005/06 didn't make any airwaves for a good 2,3 years.

He always had tremendous raw ability; great ball playing ability and reactions, but why was he not instantly successful?

Even he had to be smart, self reflective and then had to iron out his chinks and develop his game further.
The talent had given him tremendous capacity, but he had to extract it himself.

Compare this to Umar Akmal who burst on the scene with several match changing innings in just his first year of international cricket.

There was a reason why everyone was raving about him.
Go check the excitement aussie commentators had when he was taking apart Siddle in the boxing day test.
For one, Ian healy called him a cross between "javed miandad and Sachin Tendulkar". Heck experts didnt rate Kohli higher than him during that time.

He had that elite physical ability, but just when he fell out of favour, he just had no answer.

That is where his astonishing lack of intelligence, psychological inadequacies ( for example, his perennial victim mentality) and lack of work ethic came together and destroyed his career to the point where most people like you would laugh at the notion that he at one point was billed to be a batting genius.
 
Pacy with wisdom said:
I am not exaggerating. That is your opinion.
Physical ability is one thing, but then you need intelligence and work ethic to further improve your capacity.

Ab devilliers when he started in 2005/06 didn't make any airwaves for a good 2,3 years.

He always had tremendous raw ability; great ball playing ability and reactions, but why was he not instantly successful?

Even he had to be smart, self reflective and then had to iron out his chinks and develop his game further.
The talent had given him tremendous capacity, but he had to extract it himself.

Compare this to Umar Akmal who burst on the scene with several match changing innings in just his first year of international cricket.

There was a reason why everyone was raving about him.
Go check the excitement aussie commentators had when he was taking apart Siddle in the boxing day test.
For one, Ian healy called him a cross between "javed miandad and Sachin Tendulkar". Heck experts didnt rate Kohli higher than him during that time.

He had that elite physical ability, but just when he fell out of favour, he just had no answer.

That is where his astonishing lack of intelligence, psychological inadequacies ( for example, his perennial victim mentality) and lack of work ethic came together and destroyed his career to the point where most people like you would laugh at the notion that he at one point was billed to be a batting genius.
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I’ve always wondered about the genes in that family, it’s kinda crazy that two batsmen with world class raw ability (Bobby and Umar) happened to be cousins, with Kamran and Adnan not too shabby either. Ghar pe khanay mai kya khatay hain? Thora maghas masala bhi khaya hota tou Umar kahaan se kahaan pohanch jata.
 
Pacy with wisdom said:
I am not exaggerating. That is your opinion.
Physical ability is one thing, but then you need intelligence and work ethic to further improve your capacity.

Ab devilliers when he started in 2005/06 didn't make any airwaves for a good 2,3 years.

He always had tremendous raw ability; great ball playing ability and reactions, but why was he not instantly successful?

Even he had to be smart, self reflective and then had to iron out his chinks and develop his game further.
The talent had given him tremendous capacity, but he had to extract it himself.

Compare this to Umar Akmal who burst on the scene with several match changing innings in just his first year of international cricket.

There was a reason why everyone was raving about him.
Go check the excitement aussie commentators had when he was taking apart Siddle in the boxing day test.
For one, Ian healy called him a cross between "javed miandad and Sachin Tendulkar". Heck experts didnt rate Kohli higher than him during that time.

He had that elite physical ability, but just when he fell out of favour, he just had no answer.

That is where his astonishing lack of intelligence, psychological inadequacies ( for example, his perennial victim mentality) and lack of work ethic came together and destroyed his career to the point where most people like you would laugh at the notion that he at one point was billed to be a batting genius.
Click to expand...

Do you feel Babar can be the batsman of the 2020's?
 
Pacy with wisdom said:
I am not exaggerating. That is your opinion.
Physical ability is one thing, but then you need intelligence and work ethic to further improve your capacity.

Ab devilliers when he started in 2005/06 didn't make any airwaves for a good 2,3 years.

He always had tremendous raw ability; great ball playing ability and reactions, but why was he not instantly successful?

Even he had to be smart, self reflective and then had to iron out his chinks and develop his game further.
The talent had given him tremendous capacity, but he had to extract it himself.

Compare this to Umar Akmal who burst on the scene with several match changing innings in just his first year of international cricket.

There was a reason why everyone was raving about him.
Go check the excitement aussie commentators had when he was taking apart Siddle in the boxing day test.
For one, Ian healy called him a cross between "javed miandad and Sachin Tendulkar". Heck experts didnt rate Kohli higher than him during that time.

He had that elite physical ability, but just when he fell out of favour, he just had no answer.

That is where his astonishing lack of intelligence, psychological inadequacies ( for example, his perennial victim mentality) and lack of work ethic came together and destroyed his career to the point where most people like you would laugh at the notion that he at one point was billed to be a batting genius.
Click to expand...

Totally agree. In terms of raw ability, Umar was on a different plane. My god, was he exciting when he came on to the scene. But the fall was so bad that now people wonder if he was ever that talented. But he was, without a doubt.
 
zain7077 said:
Do you feel Babar can be the batsman of the 2020's?
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Yes definitely. Babar most importantly has his brain ��. He is down to earth and has drive to be the best. Kohli was average when he arrived but he pushed himself to be the best. Babar has more natural ability. Wishing him luck.����
 
Cric_lover4487 said:
Yes definitely. Babar most importantly has his brain ��. He is down to earth and has drive to be the best. Kohli was average when he arrived but he pushed himself to be the best. Babar has more natural ability. Wishing him luck.����
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Yeah i definitely believe he can as well. Our lack of fixtures worries me though. One of my Indian mates keeps insisting he'll never be the best in the world and just seems to have something against him. Really want him to dominate this decade.
 
KoyoAli said:
Somewhere in his career his game changed for aggressive and exciting to defensive and snooze worthy. Don't know what happened but I remember as a young player he used to take risks in the powerplay and get us off to flyers. Then suddenly he went into a shell, the fact that he cant rotate the strike to save his life meant that his defensive game got exposed even more. The Shahzad of Today reminds me of the Misbah. Tuk tuk starts and acceleration at the end, which is always too little too late, except he doesn't even have the consistency of Misbah. Its quite frustrating considering the talent he showed early on in his career.
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When did his game change? He has been a tuk tuk master since his debut. He always goes at a very low SR. Has no shots and that is the reason for his pathetic record.
 
Cric_lover4487 said:
Yes definitely. Babar most importantly has his brain ��. He is down to earth and has drive to be the best. Kohli was average when he arrived but he pushed himself to be the best. Babar has more natural ability. Wishing him luck.����
Click to expand...
Yup, Babar is a more natural batsman compared to Kohli.
The latter is just a mental genius on top of being a fully optimized athlete.
 
Umar and shehzad at the time they were introduced were amongst the most talented of players that could give the likes of Younis, Yousuf, Misbah, Afridi, Sr Akmal and Malik a run for their money. They was on par if not many times individually better than most of the mentioned batters above.

Clearly they fault was the amount of stardom that was thrown their way... once a handful of performances went down they were receiving constant hero treatment.

Fans and coaches as well players in the team hid behind them as they were meant to be our saviours with their batting talent.

I think in the end we just put so much pressure on the two that they had no more option than to fail.

Just look at how Misbah gave them the last go. As soon as he was made selector he brought them in n said ‘chalo karo perform’, when both of these players we know will perform only when they are completely settled in their minds.

Afridi was probably the only player to get any noteable performance out of them.

Don’t think they will come back to international any time soon unless we two three seasons from them of hard core runs.

And then there is Waqars report on them as well that ruined them for ever too.
 
not the same after getting hit in the head, his test stats were very good till that point, 3 hundreds and 2 fifties in 8 tests.

his biggest problem was running down the wicket to spinners in limited over games, for someone who messed it up that often its crazy he still kept attempting it.
 
ElRaja said:
not the same after getting hit in the head, his test stats were very good till that point, 3 hundreds and 2 fifties in 8 tests.

his biggest problem was running down the wicket to spinners in limited over games, for someone who messed it up that often its crazy he still kept attempting it.
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I always felt he played safe most of the time. Used to consume 70-80 balls to score 50 then tried to slog over midwicket. He didn't had strike rotation ability and always relied to slogging over mid wicket to score boundary. Top class bowlers like Bumrah, Starc, Amir won't let you clear front leg and slog over mid wicket. Look at Babar, he plays at good strike rate effortlessly.
 
He became overly cautious as a batsman and that affected his strokeplay and mindset. Time and again got bogged down before losing his wicket.
 
With Pakistan cricket you can never rule out someone making a comeback. But his limitations have been brutally exposed at international level. Unless he plans on overcoming them, he won't be playing international cricket again.
 
Post marriage also both have not been the same iirc — seems like they haven’t been able to cope to all the change.
 
Mamoon said:
First impression is usually the last impression.

Although Shehzad played a couple of ODI against Australia in 2009, the first time people took note of him was on the 2010-11 tour of New Zealand.

He did bat aggressively and flamboyantly in that series with some amazing strokes. He scored a 50 at a SR of 160+ in one of the T20Is and took on Milne’s short balls who was bowling very rapidly.

In the ODI series he scored a century at a SR of 105 and batted at a SR of 100+ throughout the series.

He was (officially) 19-20 at the time and that is when the notion that he was an aggressive, fearless batsman was established amongst the fans.

Unfortunately, apart from 1-2 innings aside (hundreds vs SA 2013 and NZ 2014), he never batted at that tempo in ODI cricket again.

He became overly cautious and defensive. It was particularly painful to watch him during his 2013-14 run under Misbah where he would bat at a SR of 65-70 throughout the first half of his innings, and unless he would score big, his innings would suck the momentum out of Pakistan’s batting.

Whether it was fear of losing his place in the side or whatever, but he was clearly not batting with the same free mindset that he did in New Zealand in 2010-11.

It cannot just be the pitches and small boundaries because he never played like that in New Zealand again either.

Shehzad’s career is a bit of a tragedy for me and perhaps more so than Umar because he actually has good work ethic and works very hard on his fitness and fielding.
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The last paragraph is what shows the level of trolling and you adopting the natural position of going against the majority-alongside a lack of consistency or shewr hypocrisy.

One player who you do nothing but chastise(despite his potential), Shadab Khan- does he not have a good work ethic? Does he not work hard on his fielding/fitness? At least, keep your hypocrisy to a minimum......
!
 
Thunderbolt14 said:
I’ve always wondered about the genes in that family, it’s kinda crazy that two batsmen with world class raw ability (Bobby and Umar) happened to be cousins, with Kamran and Adnan not too shabby either. Ghar pe khanay mai kya khatay hain? Thora maghas masala bhi khaya hota tou Umar kahaan se kahaan pohanch jata.
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Let's just put it this way, if Umar had the brains of Kohli, or even Babar, or heck even Shoaib Malik, he would have been one of the best all format batsmen ever to play the game.
 
Pacy with wisdom said:
Let's just put it this way, if Umar had the brains of Kohli, or even Babar, or heck even Shoaib Malik, he would have been one of the best all format batsmen ever to play the game.
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To be honest, Umar would still probably more effective in T20s at 5/6 than the likes of Khushdil Shah and Iftikhar Ahmed.

I’d still kick him out to avoid contamination.
 
Stats aren't reflective of everything. Despite his low strike rate Shahzad used to be a different type of Batsman, he used to take risks in the powerplay, he would play that inside out over the cover drive and a short-arm jab against pace. His low strike rate was due to his lack of ability to rotate the strike and fall of wickets at the other end. His own game however had a sense of intent. Now that we have seen Haidar and Fakhar Shahzads game looks even worse, however, he used to have intent in his batting early on in his career that I can't really describe with stats, It was something I noticed watching him bat live.
 
Waqar's inswinging yorker said:
The last paragraph is what shows the level of trolling and you adopting the natural position of going against the majority-alongside a lack of consistency or shewr hypocrisy.

One player who you do nothing but chastise(despite his potential), Shadab Khan- does he not have a good work ethic? Does he not work hard on his fielding/fitness? At least, keep your hypocrisy to a minimum......
!
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Shadab is a bits and pieces player and he is doing well within his capacity.

Only people who no cricket knowledge and IQ think he is some outstanding talent who will blow up into a world class leg-spinner and batsman in the future. That is not going to happen.

Shadab is actually quite an ordinary cricketer. He is not a natural in either leg-spin or batting, but he has been able to utilize whatever he has because he is focused and hard working, and I do respect those characteristics but Pakistan cannot carry a part-time bowler and a glorified tail-ender in all formats because he dives around like a dolphin in the field.

He is only good for T20s at this point, and he needs to play a lot of FC to develop and hone his leg spin which is very raw and and good enough for your so-called main spinner in ODIs.

As a batsman, his slow reactions and lack of coordination tells me that in the long run, he will never be more than a 30 average batsman and he lacks the explosive power to be a useful lower order striker like Afridi.

Zafar Gohar and Raza Hasan were both better bowling prospects than Shadab but unfortunately both got wasted.

If Pakistan wants to continue be a 6th or 7th ranked Test and ODI team in the world, then by all means continue the golden boy treatment of Shadab, but if we want to improve, we will have to do better than this overrated show pony.
 
Pacy with wisdom said:
Shehzad was only good when the ball was in his zone. His reactions were pretty slow otherwise, so no comparison with Umar.

Umar on the other hand was an elite batting talent in terms of physical ability. He had a powerful core, great co-ordination and unreal reactions to the ball.

In terms of ability, he was babar azam on steroids and could have been the successor to ab devilliers.

But the problems with him are in his mind. On top of having psychological issues, he is a genuinely dumb person, with a poor attitude, and absolutely
no self reflection and ownership of mistakes- almost to the point of being deluded.
Click to expand...

This is true.

Haider Ali has the same reactions as Umar, but his coordination is not close yet. With proper coaching and hard work he can get there.

What is frustrating with respect to Umar is that he did not have to work like a demon to have a successful career. Unfortunately, his IQ is very low.
 
Saj said:
He became overly cautious as a batsman and that affected his strokeplay and mindset. Time and again got bogged down before losing his wicket.
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Saj bhai, any hope for him? He at one point was my favorite player. Still like the chap, have personally met him various times - used to go to the same gym. Have had a soft corner for him due to his tough childhood. He has the charisma of a super star and is actually a good player - better than the likes of Shan Masood, Fakhar etc.
 
If Babar Azam could uplift his game and be his own coach, then what prevented the likes of Umar Akmal and Ahmed Shehzad from reaching the same heights?
 
Mamoon said:
Shadab is a bits and pieces player and he is doing well within his capacity.

Only people who no cricket knowledge and IQ think he is some outstanding talent who will blow up into a world class leg-spinner and batsman in the future. That is not going to happen.

Shadab is actually quite an ordinary cricketer. He is not a natural in either leg-spin or batting, but he has been able to utilize whatever he has because he is focused and hard working, and I do respect those characteristics but Pakistan cannot carry a part-time bowler and a glorified tail-ender in all formats because he dives around like a dolphin in the field.

He is only good for T20s at this point, and he needs to play a lot of FC to develop and hone his leg spin which is very raw and and good enough for your so-called main spinner in ODIs.

As a batsman, his slow reactions and lack of coordination tells me that in the long run, he will never be more than a 30 average batsman and he lacks the explosive power to be a useful lower order striker like Afridi.

Zafar Gohar and Raza Hasan were both better bowling prospects than Shadab but unfortunately both got wasted.

If Pakistan wants to continue be a 6th or 7th ranked Test and ODI team in the world, then by all means continue the golden boy treatment of Shadab, but if we want to improve, we will have to do better than this overrated show pony.
Click to expand...

not good enough*
 
Savak said:
If Babar Azam could uplift his game and be his own coach, then what prevented the likes of Umar Akmal and Ahmed Shehzad from reaching the same heights?
Click to expand...
Babar looks relaxed at the crease and plays the ball according to merit. Shehzad on the other hand always looked uneasy and tried to premeditate every delivery. His scoring shot was clearing front leg and slog over mid wicket. I am sorry but he never had the outrageous talent to begin with. He was a limited player to begin with. He was unnecessarily hyped by ex Pakistani players like Razzaq etc.
 
Babar doesnt play for the crowd , he doesnt even play for the win (it seems sometimes) but his hunger for runs is absolutely unmatched. The hunger is more like is that of smiths. Thats why he is not in pressure when on the crease apart from when he is truly pushed for the runrate requirement.
 
Mamoon said:
Shadab is a bits and pieces player and he is doing well within his capacity.

Only people who no cricket knowledge and IQ think he is some outstanding talent who will blow up into a world class leg-spinner and batsman in the future. That is not going to happen.

Shadab is actually quite an ordinary cricketer. He is not a natural in either leg-spin or batting, but he has been able to utilize whatever he has because he is focused and hard working, and I do respect those characteristics but Pakistan cannot carry a part-time bowler and a glorified tail-ender in all formats because he dives around like a dolphin in the field.

He is only good for T20s at this point, and he needs to play a lot of FC to develop and hone his leg spin which is very raw and and good enough for your so-called main spinner in ODIs.

As a batsman, his slow reactions and lack of coordination tells me that in the long run, he will never be more than a 30 average batsman and he lacks the explosive power to be a useful lower order striker like Afridi.

Zafar Gohar and Raza Hasan were both better bowling prospects than Shadab but unfortunately both got wasted.

If Pakistan wants to continue be a 6th or 7th ranked Test and ODI team in the world, then by all means continue the golden boy treatment of Shadab, but if we want to improve, we will have to do better than this overrated show pony.
Click to expand...

That was not my point.

On one hand,to go against the grain, Shahzad has excellent fitness and great on field but Shadab is a show pony,etc,etc- talk about trying to go against the grain and not being consistent!!
 
Waqar's inswinging yorker said:
That was not my point.

On one hand,to go against the grain, Shahzad has excellent fitness and great on field but Shadab is a show pony,etc,etc- talk about trying to go against the grain and not being consistent!!
Click to expand...

What answer do you want to me to give you that will meet your expectations? I am sorry if you do not like my answer.
 
Saj said:
He became overly cautious as a batsman and that affected his strokeplay and mindset. Time and again got bogged down before losing his wicket.
Click to expand...

The point is he always batted slow, when did he score 50 plus (match winning) at a high SR?

he was dropped during the WT20 in 2009 and CT 2017 due to his tuk tuk. After he got dropped PAK started doing better.

Right from his 1st game (white ball) he played at a SR around 65 to max 75.


about tests sample size is too small and even most of is games are on the roads of UAE.
 
Slim said:
Saj bhai, any hope for him? He at one point was my favorite player. Still like the chap, have personally met him various times - used to go to the same gym. Have had a soft corner for him due to his tough childhood. He has the charisma of a super star and is actually a good player - better than the likes of Shan Masood, Fakhar etc.
Click to expand...


charisma of a superstar? Oh dear...
Fakhar Zaman 1 innings is worth more than AS 10 year plus career.
 
I don't know why people are not pointing out the real issue of Ahmed Shehzad and that is his faulty technique.

He always had the problem of strike rotation, which is a must for any modern Odi batsman. He was doing fine in test cricket but now he is a lost case even in that format as well.

Already 29 (officially) so he has very little time left.
 
Mamoon said:
First impression is usually the last impression.

Although Shehzad played a couple of ODI against Australia in 2009, the first time people took note of him was on the 2010-11 tour of New Zealand.

He did bat aggressively and flamboyantly in that series with some amazing strokes. He scored a 50 at a SR of 160+ in one of the T20Is and took on Milne’s short balls who was bowling very rapidly.

In the ODI series he scored a century at a SR of 105 and batted at a SR of 100+ throughout the series.

He was (officially) 19-20 at the time and that is when the notion that he was an aggressive, fearless batsman was established amongst the fans.

Unfortunately, apart from 1-2 innings aside (hundreds vs SA 2013 and NZ 2014), he never batted at that tempo in ODI cricket again.

He became overly cautious and defensive. It was particularly painful to watch him during his 2013-14 run under Misbah where he would bat at a SR of 65-70 throughout the first half of his innings, and unless he would score big, his innings would suck the momentum out of Pakistan’s batting.

Whether it was fear of losing his place in the side or whatever, but he was clearly not batting with the same free mindset that he did in New Zealand in 2010-11.

It cannot just be the pitches and small boundaries because he never played like that in New Zealand again either.

Shehzad’s career is a bit of a tragedy for me and perhaps more so than Umar because he actually has good work ethic and works very hard on his fitness and fielding.
Click to expand...

Yeah and he was hard done by in tests.
 
With some hard work and proper guidance I reckon Shehzad could have had a decent test career - low 40s average, 10-12 x 100s over 70-80 tests that kind of thing (something like Azhar Ali).

However I’ve never understood the white ball hype - he’s always been portrayed by his fans as this super aggressive one day cricketer yet the reality is in odis his strike rate was worse than people like Younis, Trott, Misbah etc.
 
Gabbar Singh said:
With some hard work and proper guidance I reckon Shehzad could have had a decent test career - low 40s average, 10-12 x 100s over 70-80 tests that kind of thing (something like Azhar Ali).

However I’ve never understood the white ball hype - he’s always been portrayed by his fans as this super aggressive one day cricketer yet the reality is in odis his strike rate was worse than people like Younis, Trott, Misbah etc.
Click to expand...
Ahmad Shehzad has way way more talent in his pinky finger than Sachin ever had- Razzaq
 
Gabbar Singh said:
With some hard work and proper guidance I reckon Shehzad could have had a decent test career - low 40s average, 10-12 x 100s over 70-80 tests that kind of thing (something like Azhar Ali).

However I’ve never understood the white ball hype - he’s always been portrayed by his fans as this super aggressive one day cricketer yet the reality is in odis his strike rate was worse than people like Younis, Trott, Misbah etc.
Click to expand...

Didnt he get hit by a bouncer after that he slowly disappeared ?
 
223 runs at an average of 22.30 with just 1 fifty.

Very poor stats in this season's QeA Trophy so far.
 
Shehzad was never that talented. Except in the eyes of spinach-eating Popeyes like Razzaq. Half-decent international bowlers figured out his weaknesses and the dude used to look helpless. Forget Umar. The likes of Imran Nazir, Salman Butt, and, especially, Yasir Hameed were more talented openers and they never made it far either.
 
Ahmad-GERMANFC said:
Lame argument. Ahmad was one of the best openers in the world when he was dropped for no reason. He had dominated Australia and NZ in tests
Click to expand...

This is Ahmed Shehzad you are talking about?! One of the best openers in the world? My word :facepalm:
 
I don’t understand why PP posters always claim that he was a fearless aggressive player but Misbah made him play defensive cricket. As far as I remember he was always very limited player. Always relied on leg side slogs to score boundaries.
 
Cric_lover4487 said:
I don’t understand why PP posters always claim that he was a fearless aggressive player but Misbah made him play defensive cricket. As far as I remember he was always very limited player. Always relied on leg side slogs to score boundaries.
Click to expand...

You can’t be limited player and dominate in ODIs down under. You can’t be limited player and dominate nightly Australia and NZ in Test series’ especially back in 2014 when they were were very strong. You can’t be limited player but party of 2 ICC tournament wins.
 
Slim said:
Saj bhai, any hope for him? He at one point was my favorite player. Still like the chap, have personally met him various times - used to go to the same gym. Have had a soft corner for him due to his tough childhood. He has the charisma of a super star and is actually a good player - better than the likes of Shan Masood, Fakhar etc.
Click to expand...
He definitely does bhai. I don’t think anyone can argue that he was mistreated and hard done by whether you are fan or not
 
All the best to him but from multiple sources he and akmal were toxic for team environment. He was just ok In tests and maybe could have done better. Terrible odi and t20 player. The bouncer also made him lose confidence. Was always in shape . In my humble opinion is downfall was his own making. Thought too much of hímself. . Still very young , can make a come back.
 
Ahmad-GERMANFC said:
You can’t be limited player and dominate in ODIs down under. You can’t be limited player and dominate nightly Australia and NZ in Test series’ especially back in 2014 when they were were very strong. You can’t be limited player but party of 2 ICC tournament wins.
Click to expand...

There are countless, countless examples of limited players having one or two great knocks over seas
 
He is an example of someone who overthought too much about his batting.
 
Savak said:
He is an example of someone who overthought too much about his batting.
Click to expand...
No. He has always been a limited player. Looked good in the nets, that’s all. Had major strike rotation issues throughout his career, and was technically deficient.
 
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