I agree with you completely, i am not convinced by fakhar yet and definetly azhar and imam are not the solution either. We need to experiment now before it's too late.
My 11 will be ( experimenting)
Amin/ Haris
Umar Akmal/ Zeeshan/ Hammad
Babar (infact him openeing won't be a bad idea)
Sarfraz/ Haris
Malik
Amir yamin/ or someone else other then hafeez
Shadab
Fahim
hasan
amir
New pacer (under 25)
Since the PP was introduced sometimes around 1992 WC, game become head heavy - teams try to build momentum at start, reduce the asking or at least try not to raise in PP. But, to do so, you can't reach 100/4 even @ 8 RR, then you won't play out even 50 overs and fail to chase or put even par score (which has changed from 200 to 300 in course of time for several different factors).
So, Martin (Crowe) started the revolution with Greatbatch, WI also put BC at top - Arjuna (& Dav) took it to another level - 2 all-rounders at top (Kalu was an all-rounder as well), then his best 3 players at 3-5. Idea was that, if his openers blasts, game should end in 40 overs, if not still it's not a disaster, because those 2 openers had duel roles and naturally aggressive players. Interestingly, in 1996 WC, for SF & Final, SRL's openers' contribution was I believe 0, 0, 3 & 5, still it hardly mattered.
Now, not every team had a Sanath, so they started to bring their free scoring players up - idea was that these players can hit every loose ball, but good/selective enough to survive the new ball and once set, can convert starts to reach 100, can rotate in middle overs. One by one every team brought their best middle orders to open - Lara, ST, Gilly, Mark, Ganguly, Astle, Fleming, KP, Sehwag, Gibbs, Dilshan, Mahela ........ even we put Ashraful at the top!!!! It was good fortune for PAK cricket that, some how despite being aggressive players, Saeed-Sohail used to open in domestic, so they were sent as bakra (read opener), and that guy Saeed Anwar had 19 ODI hundreds in about 170 matches in 7-8 years (he had one in last 50+ months and took 3 years for 1st one) - that's in any era/standard in outstanding, and he did that at 85+ SR, which is almost blasphemous for PAK think tank (read risking to expose middle order against new ball). They tried it other way - opened with Afridi - against new ball and against best 2 pacers!!!!!!
Now, coming to openers, obviously I would like Soumya to average 50 at 100 SR, but that's a bit above average staff - next is a choice between 25/110 or 50/70. I tend to believe that, when you have Amir & Hasan at 9/10 - it's better to risk 201/4 at 35th over, rather than 150/1 - unfortunately, PAK think tank believed in the other option, hence Azhar/Shezad opened for 2 years & Umar was expected to win from #7 - again, larke lenge style.
It's a fundamental difference of how one see the game - IND think tank see it as a initiative to hold the game by it's neck from the beginning, so they sent Sehwag at 1 from 6; Pak tank see it to kill at stage (I am not sure if the term "Stage pe Maar" is familiar in PAK or not) - so they sent Umar/Maqsood from 3 to 7.
Umar should be a fantastic ODI/T20 opener, if the expectation is measured. If someone goes for the kill, obviously he'll get out softly many times - but, he is not killing the game with 19 (35) in PP - if he plays 35 balls, he'll reach 50; if he goes out for 19, won't cost more than 15/16 balls - that allows the next man time enough to reconstruct, there are 5/6 batsmen for a reason and that's why we talk about batting depth, otherwise 3 batsmen should do the job every time. In between, if say one out of 10 times, if he bats till 35th overs - it'll take herculean effort from both sides, for PAK to lose that game. Problem is, when people start discussion with - Bradman's average is 99, Viv's SR is 77 ................
I am pretty sure, by now apart from their die hard fans, most people watching PAK's game actually prays that Azhar, Sarfraz, MoHa, Shehzad doesn't last long (but they do expect that PAK's RR should never go below 5 at any stage !!!!!!!) - that's the travesty of PAK ODI team; skill or batting talent isn't the big issue even in batting.
