Let's not forget the flaws despite the Champions Trophy victory

[zyrus]

Okay we won, its been a dreamish week. But we also need to work over our flaws to have more success. I was able to spot 2. Please feel free to add more. Improving would differentiate between one time wonder and being ATG team.

1. Our team selection was horrible, we only had 3 fast men against India. If any of 2 batsman could survive our initial overs, it was game over for us. They were striking it far better than us. Even with pandya there was 10% chance of them crossing 80 90 req runs mark and then lower order completing the rest. We had no consistent yorker to squeeze things out till the end. We can not do such mistakes against better teams again.


2. Our core batting was still way too slow. 338 on oval is chasable. We never had a middle order batsman scoring at ~100SR. And they lacked aggression when a wicket fell till Zaman changed the outlook by his aggresssive batting.


3. We lacked big hitter at the end. Luckily, Hafeez managed to save face. But it was no where near great effort. We needed someone like Fahim who could take risks and hit big. I was expecting 360-380 before Imad/Hafeez.

Any more you want to add?

 

[Amir]

Agree with the concept you are going for but many of your points are odd. We were fine with three pacers and just cause Pandya hit a few meaningless sixes, we shouldn't fear. We made 338, great score in the finals. We did not bad slow at all. I agree on point three.

Going forward, great as this victory was it does not mean sustainability which we have always lacked. I hope the board now gives full confidence to the captain and coach (even though I though he was a dud!). What our team still needs to do before 2019:

1) Rotate the bowlers. Now that Rumman is here too and we have a few other pacers, don't bowl Amir and Hasan into the ground with all three formats.

2) Bring in Fahim Ashraf, give him time. We need a hitter. He can hit. Let him hit.

3) Slowly replace middle order. I would love to drop Hafeez but he prob bought himself time to the 2023 WC. Hopefully management has the balls now to say you play lower down the order with a 100 SR or get out of the team. You are no longer good for the top order.

4) Azhar struck quite a partnership with Fakhar but to be honest that is because Fakhar took a lot of the pressure of Azhar. In the long-term, still not srue if Azhar is the modern day ODI bat you want. Hopefully we get Sharjeel back soon.

5) Malik - been lucky to be a big fish in a small pond. Pond getting bigger now. Time to sink or swim. If his performances don't improve throughout the team, I would drop him before 2019 WC. Blood in Haris or Umar Amin.

6) Bulld bench strength. Rotate games for Umar Amin, Haris Sohail...so we don't always play Hafeez Malik and say oh we need to pick experience in tournament.

7) Finally realize this whole its too close to the World Cup to play these guys is all hogwash. Our young guys won us this title. Doesn't matter if 2017 or 2018 or 2019, get them in the team and pick the best 11.

 

[zyrus]

Agree with the concept you are going for but many of your points are odd. We were fine with three pacers and just cause Pandya hit a few meaningless sixes, we shouldn't fear. We made 338, great score in the finals. We did not bad slow at all. I agree on point three.

Going forward, great as this victory was it does not mean sustainability which we have always lacked. I hope the board now gives full confidence to the captain and coach (even though I though he was a dud!). What our team still needs to do before 2019:

1) Rotate the bowlers. Now that Rumman is here too and we have a few other pacers, don't bowl Amir and Hasan into the ground with all three formats.

2) Bring in Fahim Ashraf, give him time. We need a hitter. He can hit. Let him hit.

3) Slowly replace middle order. I would love to drop Hafeez but he prob bought himself time to the 2023 WC. Hopefully management has the balls now to say you play lower down the order with a 100 SR or get out of the team. You are no longer good for the top order.

4) Azhar struck quite a partnership with Fakhar but to be honest that is because Fakhar took a lot of the pressure of Azhar. In the long-term, still not srue if Azhar is the modern day ODI bat you want. Hopefully we get Sharjeel back soon.

5) Malik - been lucky to be a big fish in a small pond. Pond getting bigger now. Time to sink or swim. If his performances don't improve throughout the team, I would drop him before 2019 WC. Blood in Haris or Umar Amin.

6) Bulld bench strength. Rotate games for Umar Amin, Haris Sohail...so we don't always play Hafeez Malik and say oh we need to pick experience in tournament.

7) Finally realize this whole its too close to the World Cup to play these guys is all hogwash. Our young guys won us this title. Doesn't matter if 2017 or 2018 or 2019, get them in the team and pick the best 11.

It was Zaman's first game against India. They didnt knew his spin playing abilities. Thats why he was able to hit much. Second, only one end was striking. Babar was playing way too slow. On the other hand imagine Pandya and Yuvraj going crazy from both ends. We were def. Shot of 20 30 runs and we were also expected to expose spin in front of Indian batsmen.

Rotation is also necessary but we must not forget them like Sami or Fawad.

 

[offcutter]

Don't know how anyone can argue we were too slow. B Kumar bowled really well at the death and very few batsmen would have been able to smash him around with the lengths he was constantly bowling. You have to give credit to the opposition in that case instead of blame our own players. The fact is we capitalized on the spinners and the inconsistent Bumrah, but I believe we played Pandiya and Kumar as best we could. 338 was an excellent score and we batted as well as any team would have.

 

[zyrus]

Don't know how anyone can argue we were too slow. B Kumar bowled really well at the death and very few batsmen would have been able to smash him around with the lengths he was constantly bowling. You have to give credit to the opposition in that case instead of blame our own players. The fact is we capitalized on the spinners and the inconsistent Bumrah, but I believe we played Pandiya and Kumar as best we could. 338 was an excellent score and we batted as well as any team would have.

A bit true. But we should have taken more risk. Hafeez and Imad missed too many bowls trying to get cheap runs. And good pinch hitter would have sent couple of them out of the park.

We were fine for Pandya considering that he bowled in lesser significant time. Although Zaman could have hold on a bit. But his batting was destructive and we seeemed to have no answer for him till they went crazy with in.

 

[Rayyman]

No big hitting?

Hafeez and Imad put on an unbeaten stand of 71 runs off the last 7.3 overs against some quality death bowling.

 

[zyrus]

No big hitting?

Hafeez and Imad put on an unbeaten stand of 71 runs off the last 7.3 overs against some quality death bowling.

71 was okayish, not superb, considering that the track was dead and we had 6 batsman behind. 338 was just around par score.

 

[Rayyman]

71 was okayish, not superb, considering that the track was dead and we had 6 batsman behind. 338 was just around par score.

Give credit to India, they bowled well.

 

[zyrus]

Give credit to India, they bowled well.

They always do. But it was our job to find out boundaries. And we failed 80% of times to do that.

 

[Tommo]

I like the fact the Pakistanis are going back to critique their team's performance. It's a good sign.. I would say there are areas to improve, some of these comprise of:
1) Fitness
2) Fielding (was good, could be even better)
3) Players throwing wickets away at crucial times
4) Excess baggage in the team like Shoaib Malik- could easily be replaced to augment the batting
5) Hafeez, if he is to continue has to permanently bat down the order as a finisher
6) Heavily dependent upon Fakhar- need a middle order batsmen that can rotate the strike with ease and hit big when required. (Not sure who at the minute)

"Constructive criticism can act as a catalyst for you to do well in the future."

 

[Rayyman]

Imad, Haris, Amir, Hasan, Junaid, and Sarfraz need to improve fitness.

Haris should come in the XI in place of Malik.

 

[srh]

this team is too much dependent on Fakhar Zaman and thats the biggest problem. If Fakhar Zaman fails then this team may not even score 250. Other than Fakhar Zaman nobody can play at 100+ strike rate in the top 6. Thats bad.

 

[Tommo]

Imad, Haris, Amir, Hasan, Junaid, and Sarfraz need to improve fitness.

Haris should come in the XI in place of Malik.

He can't field nor is his energy contagious. He won't make a massive difference. He may get you more runs than Malik, but nonetheless he will cost you just as much in the field and likely drop crucial catches. Haris isn't the answer.

 

[mak36]

No big hitting?

Hafeez and Imad put on an unbeaten stand of 71 runs off the last 7.3 overs against some quality death bowling.

The only thing I would say is that there were only three boundaries from the last five overs: 1 four and 2 sixes. That clearly is not good enough (especially with wickets in hand).

 

[SM1989]

He can't field nor is his energy contagious. He won't make a massive difference. He may get you more runs than Malik, but nonetheless he will cost you just as much in the field and likely drop crucial catches. Haris isn't the answer.

Haris is being promoted heavily on PP. However I do not remember any amazing performances from him in the 2015 world cup, where he was needed the most. Keep players who can't perform in big games out of the team please.

 

[coy0607]

yeah I agree, there are still a lot of questions, particularly with Imad, Hafeez, Malik and Azhar...

I really hope we use the bilateral series to test out other options to prepare for Asia Cup '18 and WC '19

 

[ads101]

Funnily enough I think the team is pretty balanced, there aren't too many flaws. It's just we've changed the team quite a bit during the champions trophy and the run up to it to fix former problems.

Here are the issues IMO:

1. Azhar, too slow but consistently scores. We need to make a decision about whether it's worth having a player like this. I'd say no, but it's up for debate.
2. Imad Wasim: Wasn't up to par, particularly batting. Hope he'll bounce back though, he's been good apart from CT, and even then he had a couple of really good bowling spells.
3. Sarfraz needs to be moved up the order, batting at four ideally.
4. Questions on whether Hafeez and Malik have any utility in the future, particularly Malik who had a bad tournament.
5. Fielding, which actually was decent and has improved with the influx of newer players like Fakhar, Shadab. Think it's moving in the right direction, not even sure it's an issue, but it can improve further.

So all in all not many problems. Pretty much every department performed for us in CT, even batting despite shaky start. Pak team actually starting to look strong. There are a couple of options for our allrounder like Fahim, Shadab promotion etc. if Imad doesn't work out. Hafeez and Malik may be concerns (even though not our biggest concerns, both are averaging over 40 these days), Haris is still to come in middle order too, but it really isn't bad having three batsmen in the side who seem to be real quality in Babar, Fakhar and Sarfraz.

Am confident that this team will surge up the rankings after the CT, just too much quality in it.