The loss of the Final Test to the West Indies should be ringing a number of alarm bells. There are a significant number of players in the team whose time is up, and not always in obvious ways.
And unless this Test team is refreshed as a matter of urgency, a sequence of bad defeats is round the corner, which could cost Pakistan a place in the World Test Championship Final anticipated for 2019.
I'm not even going to bother addressing the Zulfiqar Babar issue. Suffice it to say, his ongoing posthumous selection is an illustration of Misbah's excessive conservatism.
Mohammad Nawaz 63.5-12-147-5 at an average of 29.40
Zulfiqar Babar 67-15-149-3 at an average of 49.66.
Zulfiqar has now played 15 Tests, yet has an average of almost 40. He shows that the only thing harder than getting into the Pakistan team is getting out of it.
Unfortunately, the same is increasingly true of Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan. Yes, they came second and third in the averages and averaged 69 and 49 respectively.
But that is less than half the story. As is increasingly the case for them - and is always the case for 43 year old batsmen - they have lost their consistency: they rack up one or two big scores per series and miss out more often than they succeed.
But it's worse than that.
Misbah and Younis are the primary causes of Mohammad Amir's mediocre bowling average since his return.
Amir lacks the out-and-out pace to be a Wasim Akram style stump-smasher, as [MENTION=9]Saj[/MENTION] memorably lamented a couple of days ago. He is a very fine left-arm fast-medium bowler in a different style, one who could take mountains of wickets caught at slip and by the wicketkeeper.
But Misbah and Younis have both lost their hand-eye coordination, and they spill more chances off him than they catch at slip. That's a normal consequence of advancing age. I'm occasionally laughed at on this site for my advocacy of Umar Akmal, but the guy is a part-time wicketkeeper and would almost certainly offer more in the slip cordon than Misbah or Younis.
It is great that Pakistan has replaced Mohammad Hafeez. But one or both of Misbah and Younis need to go too, especially because Asad Shafiq seems incapable of consistency too.
There is a major problem with the pace attack too. Wahab Riaz and Rahat Khan were fine in this series and so was Mohammad Amir - the two dropped catches in the final innings would not just have won the match, but they would have converted a series average of 38.50 into an average of 28.88.
The problem - and it's a huge toppling wardrobe of a problem - is Sohail Khan.
We established in the First Test in England that Pakistan can't field a pace attack of three left-armers. It creates too much rough for opposition off-spinners to bowl into and it makes batting too easy when the angles never change.
But Sohail Khan is a great big lumbering wardrobe of a bowler. It's fine for Mohammad Asif to operate in that pace range of 127-134 K because he moves the ball subtly and consistently and bowls a more testing line and length. But Sohail's line and length are going to be a disaster against Dave Warner if he gets that far.
Sohail Khan: 59-14-157-3 at an average of 52.33 v West Indies
Sohail Khan: 203-36-727-17 at an average of 42.76 in his Test career.
That is just not a viable Test record.
I have to say that there is a major problem with how Misbah-ul-Haq uses Yasir Shah too.
Superficially his record in this series was okay:
Yasir Shah: 192.4-38-564-21 at an average of 26.85.
But the reality is more troubling. As we had already discovered at Trent Bridge and Old Trafford, Yasir doesn't spin the ball enough to take wickets when the surface doesn't help him. And he hasn't got a googly or flipper to add variety.
The bowling attack therefore too often becomes:
Mohammad Amir "supported" by the Dropsy Brothers in the slips.
Sohail Khan doing his impersonation of a wardrobe about to topple over.
Wahab Riaz whose pace and menace requires tight control at the other end and whose pace is sapped by Misbah bowling him in excessively long spells.
Yasir Shah who on unhelpful wickets has all the menace of Joe Root with the ball.
This team needs surgery, and fast.
It needs an extra pace bowling all-rounder outside Asia, and if the best you have are Aamer Yamin or Amad Butt or Hammad Azam then so be it.
And it needs younger men with quicker reflexes in the slips.
You are going to get killed Down Under with a slip cordon of old men who can't catch, and who are there to save their energy.
This happens to all old cricketers. When Wasim Akram took 4 wickets in 5 balls in 1990 against the West Indies, the ball which didn't take a wicket saw Imran Khan drop an absolute sitter at long leg. Imran's Test career was to all intents and purposes over.
And unless this Test team is refreshed as a matter of urgency, a sequence of bad defeats is round the corner, which could cost Pakistan a place in the World Test Championship Final anticipated for 2019.
I'm not even going to bother addressing the Zulfiqar Babar issue. Suffice it to say, his ongoing posthumous selection is an illustration of Misbah's excessive conservatism.
Mohammad Nawaz 63.5-12-147-5 at an average of 29.40
Zulfiqar Babar 67-15-149-3 at an average of 49.66.
Zulfiqar has now played 15 Tests, yet has an average of almost 40. He shows that the only thing harder than getting into the Pakistan team is getting out of it.
Unfortunately, the same is increasingly true of Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan. Yes, they came second and third in the averages and averaged 69 and 49 respectively.
But that is less than half the story. As is increasingly the case for them - and is always the case for 43 year old batsmen - they have lost their consistency: they rack up one or two big scores per series and miss out more often than they succeed.
But it's worse than that.
Misbah and Younis are the primary causes of Mohammad Amir's mediocre bowling average since his return.
Amir lacks the out-and-out pace to be a Wasim Akram style stump-smasher, as [MENTION=9]Saj[/MENTION] memorably lamented a couple of days ago. He is a very fine left-arm fast-medium bowler in a different style, one who could take mountains of wickets caught at slip and by the wicketkeeper.
But Misbah and Younis have both lost their hand-eye coordination, and they spill more chances off him than they catch at slip. That's a normal consequence of advancing age. I'm occasionally laughed at on this site for my advocacy of Umar Akmal, but the guy is a part-time wicketkeeper and would almost certainly offer more in the slip cordon than Misbah or Younis.
It is great that Pakistan has replaced Mohammad Hafeez. But one or both of Misbah and Younis need to go too, especially because Asad Shafiq seems incapable of consistency too.
There is a major problem with the pace attack too. Wahab Riaz and Rahat Khan were fine in this series and so was Mohammad Amir - the two dropped catches in the final innings would not just have won the match, but they would have converted a series average of 38.50 into an average of 28.88.
The problem - and it's a huge toppling wardrobe of a problem - is Sohail Khan.
We established in the First Test in England that Pakistan can't field a pace attack of three left-armers. It creates too much rough for opposition off-spinners to bowl into and it makes batting too easy when the angles never change.
But Sohail Khan is a great big lumbering wardrobe of a bowler. It's fine for Mohammad Asif to operate in that pace range of 127-134 K because he moves the ball subtly and consistently and bowls a more testing line and length. But Sohail's line and length are going to be a disaster against Dave Warner if he gets that far.
Sohail Khan: 59-14-157-3 at an average of 52.33 v West Indies
Sohail Khan: 203-36-727-17 at an average of 42.76 in his Test career.
That is just not a viable Test record.
I have to say that there is a major problem with how Misbah-ul-Haq uses Yasir Shah too.
Superficially his record in this series was okay:
Yasir Shah: 192.4-38-564-21 at an average of 26.85.
But the reality is more troubling. As we had already discovered at Trent Bridge and Old Trafford, Yasir doesn't spin the ball enough to take wickets when the surface doesn't help him. And he hasn't got a googly or flipper to add variety.
The bowling attack therefore too often becomes:
Mohammad Amir "supported" by the Dropsy Brothers in the slips.
Sohail Khan doing his impersonation of a wardrobe about to topple over.
Wahab Riaz whose pace and menace requires tight control at the other end and whose pace is sapped by Misbah bowling him in excessively long spells.
Yasir Shah who on unhelpful wickets has all the menace of Joe Root with the ball.
This team needs surgery, and fast.
It needs an extra pace bowling all-rounder outside Asia, and if the best you have are Aamer Yamin or Amad Butt or Hammad Azam then so be it.
And it needs younger men with quicker reflexes in the slips.
You are going to get killed Down Under with a slip cordon of old men who can't catch, and who are there to save their energy.
This happens to all old cricketers. When Wasim Akram took 4 wickets in 5 balls in 1990 against the West Indies, the ball which didn't take a wicket saw Imran Khan drop an absolute sitter at long leg. Imran's Test career was to all intents and purposes over.
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