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Is dropping Mohammad Abbas for the Test series against South Africa the correct decision?

Is dropping Mohammad Abbas for the Test series against South Africa the correct decision?

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Do you guys think it was fair to drop Abbas?

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Pak go into the Southern Hemisphere tests with a opening bowler of 72mph who becomes useless after 4 overs hoping to WIN the series, & come back battered 3-0 every time!!
 
100% yes

He was the biggest problem in our bowling attack. Not the inexperienced Naseem Shah.
 
Yes.

Last two seasons

39.21 AVG (11 Matches)

His strike rate has doubled, his economy rate has gone up, the pace has dropped, and his fitness has started to fade away. This man is a shadow of himself and was being dragged because of those deceptive career stats.
 
kingusama92 said:
Yes.

Last two seasons

39.21 AVG (11 Matches)

His strike rate has doubled, his economy rate has gone up, the pace has dropped, and his fitness has started to fade away. This man is a shadow of himself and was being dragged because of those deceptive career stats.
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This. Since his shoulder injury in late 2018, he has struggled. His pace is in early-mid 120s which isnt gonna be effective on majority of surfaces. Needs to work on his fitness and strength. New ball has been under-utilized recently when Abbas’ is getting neutralized by batsmen playing long way out of the crease.
 
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In the NZ and Aus series, I feel he had no support on the other end apart from Shaheen. He applied massive pressure and was very difficult to score against.

Teams are content to defend against him all day. Shaheen was ineffective with the old ball. Naseem was zero threat and Faheem was decent.

Unfair I think.
 
Let's look at his stats in last 21 inns, he took 25 wickets at an average of 39.72, his last 5 wickets haul in an innings was in 2018 vs Australia at Abu Dhabi. So his last 5 wickets haul came 21 innings ago & the last time he took more than 2 wickets in an innings was against SL in karachi where he took 4 in 1st inns of test match in December 2019.
All these things show that he's been awful since the past 2 years & definitely deserved to be dropped.
 
observer1 said:
In the NZ and Aus series, I feel he had no support on the other end apart from Shaheen. He applied massive pressure and was very difficult to score against.

Teams are content to defend against him all day. Shaheen was ineffective with the old ball. Naseem was zero threat and Faheem was decent.

Unfair I think.
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He's a strike bowler who is only really effective on seaming wickets. He needs to be doing a lot more damage with the new ball as he is virtually useless once the shine has gone. NZ should really have been perfect conditions for him, but he was struggling to produce anything like the results the NZ pacers were getting from the same pitch.
 
ChTab said:
Let's look at his stats in last 21 inns, he took 25 wickets at an average of 39.72, his last 5 wickets haul in an innings was in 2018 vs Australia at Abu Dhabi. So his last 5 wickets haul came 21 innings ago & the last time he took more than 2 wickets in an innings was against SL in karachi where he took 4 in 1st inns of test match in December 2019.
All these things show that he's been awful since the past 2 years & definitely deserved to be dropped.
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I had high hopes for Abbas after 2018, but he's been very disappointing.

As well as he's bowled, if a bowler can't get wickets, they need to be dropped
 
I can understand why people want him dropped from the team, but pp'ers shouldn't forget that he was still bowling very thightly and was very hard to score against. Also the dropped catches and the edges not carrying were certainly not helpfull for him.
 
Maybe shouldn't have been dropped from the squad, but shouldn't be in starting XI for now.

He's a hardworker so let's see if he can improve and make a comeback
 
I think he's weirdly enough a fast bowler who is a low bounce wicket specialist and would have been effective in Pakistan's next few series. Having said that, dropping him based on his returns over the last couple of years makes sense.
 
Cpt. Rishwat said:
He's a strike bowler who is only really effective on seaming wickets. He needs to be doing a lot more damage with the new ball as he is virtually useless once the shine has gone. NZ should really have been perfect conditions for him, but he was struggling to produce anything like the results the NZ pacers were getting from the same pitch.
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A strike bowler who is on strike
 
Yes, third easiest decision to drop him, after Harris and Shaan . They all dropped themselves.
 
I would've still picked him given that Tabish was his replacement but I like that the CS wants to act proactively when he sees regression.
 
Right decision.

He is not penetrative at all.. he played in Australia, England and NZL last year.. If a pace bowler cannot take wickets in SENA countries then he needs to be dropped.. He is useless elsewhere.

His fitness is not that good + with his 120kph deliveries he is bowling with the new ball.. with the old ball in Asian conditions with less pace, cant even imagine...
 
Dropping Abbas is the right decision but selecting 36 year old uncle Tabish Khan and completely untested Haris Rauf is the right one. LOL.
 
Back in 2018 , he used to bowl certain spells in the early 130's and effort ball touching 138 kph or so with the same skills. Has lost that top end of his speed and is,consequently, struggling for penetration.
 
Mohammed Wasim actually said it in the conference that he had been found out and he needed to go back to the drawing board. Abbas needs to re-evaluate things otherwise he will be on the scrapheap for good.

As for tabish, well its a straight swap and an option..doubt he'll be in the final eleven. We have shaheen, faheem and hasan for fast bowling and then two spinners.
 
Yes, he had been playing on past performances and reputation for a while now. Glad Wasim took the right decision. If Abbas is not taking wickets, his selection in the team is useless, just being economical is only good for T20's and ODI's but in test cricket you need twenty wickets to win
 
Abbas has been toothless for a while now. No need to keep a trundler who cant take any wickets.
 
Correct decision Hes been found out You cant bowl at 70mph in test cricket Players simply stand outside to the crease to him and he hasnt had any answers for the past 2yrs
 
Correct decision, at best he can play as 3rd/4th seamer, but that won’t be required in Pakistan.

No way he should ever be taking the new ball at 120ks
 
Ahmed_99 said:
Maybe shouldn't have been dropped from the squad, but shouldn't be in starting XI for now.

He's a hardworker so let's see if he can improve and make a comeback
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Yes, he shouldn't have been dropped from the squad. But then it goes into the hand of Misbah. Who will then play him.
What is more confusing is who is going to Open the batting? How did Abdullah Shafique got into the test squad. Best bet is Azhar Ali & Abid Ali.

Very Happy to be rid of Shan Masood.
 
Ball started taking so long to get to the batsmen that they could have lunch, tea and dinner and come back on day 2 and the ball would still be en route.

They got tired of waiting and came out the crease.

Pace is too leisurely. You need to be Asif level skilled with the ball if you are not going to be fast.
 
Another point with Abbas. Since he stopped taking wickets regularly, the biggest argument in his favour was that he could at least keep things tight and create pressure from one end. That’s acceptable if your a third/fourth seamer but not if your taking the new ball. One of the revelations from the NZ tour was that Faheem can play that role adeptly while providing batting depth. So in essence Hasan has taken Abbas’s role as a new ball bowler while Faheem has taken his role as the bowler who keeps things tight. They then needed an enforcer and another new ball bowler and since Abbas is not an enforcer and has struggled with a new ball it makes sense why he couldn’t find a spot on the squad.
 
I think ever since players started to come out the crease to him, he’s struggled as he doesn’t have the pace to push them back with short ball etc. This may sound silly but why doesn’t Abbas bowl a bit more behind the crease to counter the batsman standing out, easier said than done I suppose.
 
A famous saying in cricket is form is temporary and class is permanent. There are always two type of player one who have ordinary tellent but have a golden period of run. Then there are some who got class and perform for longer period.

Its no harm in playing those who are in golden run of their life but management must keep a look at what point that golden run expires. same is case with Abbas. he did serve Pakistan well but now is probably losing it. so no harm in moving on. And if he gets another good run we can definitely try him again.
 
if you require the keeper to stand up to the stumps for you with the new ball just so that you can be effective, then you are not up to test match standards.
 
cricketAXEpert said:
Yes, he shouldn't have been dropped from the squad. But then it goes into the hand of Misbah. Who will then play him.
What is more confusing is who is going to Open the batting? How did Abdullah Shafique got into the test squad. Best bet is Azhar Ali & Abid Ali.

Very Happy to be rid of Shan Masood.
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Hopefully the reports are true and Babar will get the final say of the selection. Not expecting him to be perfect, but I think it's good if he can stamp his authority since we're hoping for him to lead the team for many years to come.

I agree, it was very surprising for Abdullah Shafique to get into this 20 man squad. I was a bit disappointed that Imam has been dropped since don't think he's had a fair chance. He's been the 3rd opener for ages and it's not like our openers have set the world alight so he should have really been given a go before being dropped
 
Certainly unfair. He at least should have made it to the squad. Regarding the stats put up by Wasim, in isolation they might seem unimpressive but looking at the complete picture they aren't. During the period picked by Wasim Pakistani bowlers as a group have averaged 44.2. Individually, Shaheen has avergaed 33.7, Naseem 42.5, Yasir 48.8 and Faheem 54.7. Abbas is certainly not the bowler he was two years ago but he is still not a spent force. His primary job is to create opportunities with the new ball and then keep it tight later in the innings. He has done both jobs pretty satisfactorily. He also helped Afridi by keeping it tight at the other end. Looking at the bowlers selected, none of them are good new ball bowlers and all of them have a tendency to be wayward and leak runs when not bowling well. Overall, Wasim's has done well with his selection but this one decision seems a tad unfair.
 
Savak said:
Yes, he had been playing on past performances and reputation for a while now. Glad Wasim took the right decision. If Abbas is not taking wickets, his selection in the team is useless, just being economical is only good for T20's and ODI's but in test cricket you need twenty wickets to win
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Think this is key to the selections for this series.

Past performance is no guarantee of future greatness, unless Abbas discovers some other way of attacking batsmen.
 
His numbers have been poor.
He has lost a bit of pace.
He hasn't improved his batting at all.
He's terrible in the field.

He needed to be dropped and it will be interesting to see if he can actually come back from this.
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">He's served Pakistan well and has always given his all but Mohammad Abbas in the last couple of years hasn't been the bowler he was. Since November 2018:<br><br>Tests 13<br>Wickets 25<br>Average 39.72<br>5 wickets in an innings 0<br>10 wickets in a match 0<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Cricket?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Cricket</a></p>— Saj Sadiq (@Saj_PakPassion) <a href="https://twitter.com/Saj_PakPassion/status/1350153098992484357?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 15, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
 
amvbfm said:
Certainly unfair. He at least should have made it to the squad. Regarding the stats put up by Wasim, in isolation they might seem unimpressive but looking at the complete picture they aren't. During the period picked by Wasim Pakistani bowlers as a group have averaged 44.2. Individually, Shaheen has avergaed 33.7, Naseem 42.5, Yasir 48.8 and Faheem 54.7. Abbas is certainly not the bowler he was two years ago but he is still not a spent force. His primary job is to create opportunities with the new ball and then keep it tight later in the innings. He has done both jobs pretty satisfactorily. He also helped Afridi by keeping it tight at the other end. Looking at the bowlers selected, none of them are good new ball bowlers and all of them have a tendency to be wayward and leak runs when not bowling well. Overall, Wasim's has done well with his selection but this one decision seems a tad unfair.
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Disageee with this. Abbas has not looked threatening or penetrative at all. Batsmen know how to see him off with the new ball and old ball. His failure to take wickets puts pressure on the other bowlers to try and strive for wickets due to which they end up becoming expensive in the process, if Abbas was taking wickets and being more of a threat, it will make the other bowlers more effective as well.
 
What does Muhammad Abbas need to do to get back in the test team?

It does seem like Mohammad Abbas has been worked out by the opposition teams. They stand outside the crease which completely takes the lbw out of the equation and what allows teams to do that is his lack of pace.

With such a break between test series one would expect that he would work on this aspect of the game but he has gotten worse interms of the pace of his bowling.

Do you guys think this is the end of the road for Abbas or is he capable of turning it around and making a come back.?
 
Up his pace back to 130 kph. I remember when he first came into the team in the WI in 2017, he was touching 130 regularly. I even saw him hit 137 a couple of times. On this tour of NZ I don't remember seeing a single delivery over 130 kph.
 
aloo paratha said:
Up his pace back to 130 kph. I remember when he first came into the team in the WI in 2017, he was touching 130 regularly. I even saw him hit 137 a couple of times. On this tour of NZ I don't remember seeing a single delivery over 130 kph.
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Yeh was an average 135 kph bowler when he bursted on the scene. I think his shoulder injury has got a lot to with his lack of pace lately ..
 
Very hard to regain pace when you lose it. Mitchell Johnson managed it after working with Dennis Lillee and all of a sudden he was back from 138-140 km/hr to 148-155 km/hr for the next 2 seasons. Peter Siddle on the other hand was never the same bowler after he dropped down from 142-148 km/hr to 125-130 km/hr and he could never regain the same pace again
 
Abbas is past his peak Its going to be hard for him to gain much pace now. Poor guy looks like he has no muscle.
 
I don't think he has a good chance at making a comeback. If he wants to comeback he needs to prove he can be effective in SENA, especially the SNA. For a start maybe he should work on his fitness and athleticism, he has to be one of the least athletic professional cricketers around. He looks like an old man with back pain when bends down to pick up the ball. That should add some pace as well.
 
Become 5 years younger.

Grow 6 inches in height.

Get 15K faster.
 
I don't think he is ruled out indefinitely. With the standard of our bowling attack, all he needs is a few good first-class matches and people will start clamouring for his return.
 
I think in 2 years time we r not playing any away series in SENA....perfect for preparing new attack....and giving fresh faces chances....albeit Tabish is not a long term solution.... We need somebody like Zia ..Isranullah
 
He lost his pace and stopped taking wickets. Unfortunately another Pakistan bowler who burst on the scene and did well. But then the video analysts of other test teams worked him out and he didn't have the skill to counter that.
 
Mohammad Asif was a similar bowler, are you suggesting he would have had the same fate as Abbas in international cricket? Mohammed Abbas was probably similar places as well.
 
It is a logical call but not sure his replacement Tabish is any better, definitely not younger.

At Karachi, Abbas won’t have played in any case, even at Pindi, don’t think his pace is going to trouble SAF batsmen. Actually, outside UK he has very little place to bowl these days. Guy should look to retire and may be play few more years club cricket in UK - he’ll still run havoc in Lancashire or Birmingham leagues....
 
RedwoodOriginal said:
Dropping Abbas is the right decision but selecting 36 year old uncle Tabish Khan and completely untested Haris Rauf is the right one. LOL.
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Dropping Abbas was in fact the correct decision, but I agree that Tabish Khan and Haris Rauf should not have been selected.

Abbas has been downright useless with the new ball when batsmen stand outside the crease, but even more useless with the old ball.

On top of that, his fielding is awful and his fitness is questionable. He bowls 120kph, almost the same speed as Shan Masood. That's honestly just sad to see.
 
To put the question differently: what would the reasoning be to continue picking Abbas?

He's not getting wickets, he's at an advanced age and now declining, he hasn't been a impact player in 2+ years.

There is no reason to select him. There is more justification to select Shaheen, Hassan, Faheem and even Rauf ahead of Abbas
 
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t this fellow have amazing domestic stats? Like topping the charts type stats?

That’s p sad if true. How can you top the charts and then get found out in internationals, has nobody in our batting pool tried to take him on outside the crease? Or is every pitch a haven for fast bowlers no matter the skill level?
 
Suleiman said:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t this fellow have amazing domestic stats? Like topping the charts type stats?

That’s p sad if true. How can you top the charts and then get found out in internationals, has nobody in our batting pool tried to take him on outside the crease? Or is every pitch a haven for fast bowlers no matter the skill level?
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There are about 20 pace bowlers with Abbas type stats in our FC system from previous years.

Guys like Hammad Azam and Mir Hamza average even better. And they're rubbish.
 
He's never looked a great athlete during his career, but of late he looks even worse in terms of fitness.

He should have been most effective in New Zealand with the new ball, instead he wasted it by bowling outside off stump time and again and allowing the NZ batsmen to leave ball after ball.
 
Saj said:
He's never looked a great athlete during his career, but of late he looks even worse in terms of fitness.

He should have been most effective in New Zealand with the new ball, instead he wasted it by bowling outside off stump time and again and allowing the NZ batsmen to leave ball after ball.
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At 120-125 km/hr, even if he bowls at the stumps he is not going to trouble quality batsmen
 
UzmanBeast said:
Dropping Abbas was in fact the correct decision, but I agree that Tabish Khan and Haris Rauf should not have been selected.

Abbas has been downright useless with the new ball when batsmen stand outside the crease, but even more useless with the old ball.

On top of that, his fielding is awful and his fitness is questionable. He bowls 120kph, almost the same speed as Shan Masood. That's honestly just sad to see.
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Abbas in Pakistan is still a better bowler than practically everyone on the domestic circuit. Yes he has been incredibly disappointing as of late but its not there is anyone qualitatively better to replace him.
 
Fair decision. You felt it was the end of the road for his below average skill set and obvious lack of pace.
Only people disappointed with this are batsmen around the world who are going to miss out on easy runs now.
 
It is the right call, and a step forward. Shaheen, and Hassan now need to step up and take charge, remain injury free and put their mind firmly toward the game.
 
RedwoodOriginal said:
Abbas in Pakistan is still a better bowler than practically everyone on the domestic circuit. Yes he has been incredibly disappointing as of late but its not there is anyone qualitatively better to replace him.
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The blame of Abbas being dropped either falls on the keeper or himself. If Rizwan had brought himself up to the stumps, he would have made Abbas much more lethal, because unlike what most people think, Abbas gets a large, large number of his wickets through LBW and bowled instead of edges. So the issue is, was Rizwan not willing to come up to the stumps, or was Abbas telling him to stay back. Either way, whichever one of them is at fault, we can't fix that now.

Realistically speaking, the only thing Abbas has done in the last 21 innings is keep it tight in his first two spells, but proceed to get hit a lot from every spell afterwards.

I'd rather work on Faheem Ashraf developing that same level of accuracy as an all-rounder, and potentially reaching a similar level as Abbas than bring Abbas back into the side, because Faheem has a far brighter future. However, I'd have Faheem bring up his pace a little bit as well, maybe to bowling 130+ consistently, so that he does not face the same problem as Abbas.

I don't think that Abbas is a horrible bowler, he's smart, unlike most of our other bowlers. He knows how to set up batsmen, but at that pace, and without being able to keep batsmen in their crease, his effort has no value.
 
Whole the world is moving ahead, we're stuck debating whether a 40 year old trundler should play as a strike bowler or not.
 
Suleiman said:
Ball started taking so long to get to the batsmen that they could have lunch, tea and dinner and come back on day 2 and the ball would still be en route.

They got tired of waiting and came out the crease.

Pace is too leisurely. You need to be Asif level skilled with the ball if you are not going to be fast.
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True, and Asif was never this slow either. Abbas is outdoing himself in every series getting slower and slower. Wouldn’t be surprised if his average pace drops to 115k soon
 
Cpt. Rishwat said:
He's a strike bowler who is only really effective on seaming wickets. He needs to be doing a lot more damage with the new ball as he is virtually useless once the shine has gone. NZ should really have been perfect conditions for him, but he was struggling to produce anything like the results the NZ pacers were getting from the same pitch.
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The old Abbas would have got a heap of wickets on these New Zeland tracks. Unfortunately, Abbas has lost almost all his venom over the last few years and his performances have literally dropped off a cliff.

There's no point drying up the runs if you present no threat of getting a wicket. All you're doing is slowing the game but not actually winning it. In a 5 day game, a batsman who scores at a strike rate of 40 can usually win you a game if he doesn't get out. So by not getting anyone out, or even threatening to get anyone out, Abbas isn't actually helping the team.

There was a time where in county cricket, Abbas was just returning ridiculously good stats. Much like his international career though, he now produces nowhere near those figures in county cricket.

The point is that all signs are showing a steep and terminal decline for Abbas and this looks to me to be the end of the road for him.

I could list a hundred Pakistani players who have gone down this route of terminal decline. I really do not understand why this is so common in Pakistani cricket. One minute a player looks World class. Next minute that same player struggles to hold a bat or struggles to bowl anything of substance. In the current set of players, that is true in the case of Abbas, Naseem, Yasir Shah (showing some signs of getting better), Hassan Ali (yes, he is looking promising again but his drop in performance was extradoniary when he last played for Pakistan), Fakhar Zaman.

There are plenty of examples in the last crop of players too (Ahmed Shehzad, Nasir Jamshed etc etc). How can all of these players perform at exceptional levels for a consistent period of time and then one day, they just suddenly stop performing forever. It's such an intriguing and annoying part of Pakistani cricket and I can't explain it.
 
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Yes. Not only because he failed as a bowler, but more importantly, he failed as a leader of the bowling pack. He is the most experienced among the bowlers yet he disappointed in guiding the youngsters with the bowling lines, lengths and strategies. He mostly bowled economically and kept to himself, I rarely saw him interacting with Shaheen, Naseem and Fahim when they were bowling. I expected more from him.
 
I think he shouldn't have been dropped. He is an accurate bowler.

Only Naseem should have been dropped.
 
I'm OK with him being dropped. I don't see any other bowler taking his place. Who will be the 3rd seamer after shaheen and hasan Ali.

Please don't say Faheem ashraf, he should be classified as 5th bowler.
 
Savak said:
At 120-125 km/hr, even if he bowls at the stumps he is not going to trouble quality batsmen
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Incorrect.

Even at that pace if he is making the batsmen play and bowling at the stumps, he brings the lbw and bowled into play. If he is bowling at around the off stump at that pace he brings the caught behind and caught in the slips into play also.

At the moment ball after ball is going through to the wicket-keeper and causing no problems to the batsmen.
 
guldozer said:
I'm OK with him being dropped. I don't see any other bowler taking his place. Who will be the 3rd seamer after shaheen and hasan Ali.

Please don't say Faheem ashraf, he should be classified as 5th bowler.
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I think Faheem produced probably as much as Abbas did in the recent NZ series, and he won't have had the advantage of the new ball. So if Faheem is a 5th bowler it only highlights what a poor performance Abbas put in.
 
Since his injury he hasnt been the same bowler, he needs to regain form, 100% fitness and confidence before being recalled.
 
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