Pakistan batters - great at inviting pressure

[Blistering Barnacle]

Babar is weak against spin. It looks to me like he simply cannot play any better against spin than he did. He's not the type of player to throw his wicket away and so when he's facing a bowler who could get him out, he goes defensive. If he tried to attack, he would just get out.

In effect, he's not good enough.

After he did lose his wicket, the rest of the team just showed they aren't any better. Saud looked like the pressure had gotten to him - he was almost run out as well. I was disappointed in his innings, after the promise he showed recently.

Bumrah is a world class bowler, the best of the tournament. And Indian spinners were very good also. There's a reason they smashed Australia and that they are the tournament favorites by far.

Pak did slow down but for a lot of Babar's innings, he was going at better than a run a ball. It was just again the quality spin that he couldn't handle it. He really needs to work on that. And yes, it was quality spin and the ball did turn and also did go straight on on other occasions.

As far as Rizwan, he played how he always does which is decent but nothing special. He's a steady bat for us but not a match winner in challenging targets or conditions.

Our team has severe weak links with ifti, Nawaz, and Shadab. Those three wouldn't make better Pakistani sides of the past. They contributed hardly anything with bat or ball and haven't done anything special in ages.

They need to go, or at least Nawaz and Shadab do. I'd give Ifti a few more games.

 

[Farabi]

If Babar and Rizwan were happy with 82 runs from 17.1 overs at a run-rate of 4.77.

How do they expect the other batters to come in and score at 10 an over against the same bowlers.

Totally unfair.

Yes approach was a bit timid but unfair to focus on Babar/Rizwan.
Scoring 8 to 9 RPO for 7 or 8 overs with
wickets in hand with 4 fielders allowed outside the circle? It’s a fair expectation in today’s day and age. It could be argued that scoring 5 RPO for 30 overs is pretty hard and where Pak usually struggle. Most sides double the score that they have at the 30 over mark, which means Pak was all set for 300-310. This was also the predicted score by the broadcaster’s algorithm at that point. In a pressure game, 300-320 is a winning score.

 

[TheSultan]

The numbers of that earth-shattering partnership between Babar and Rizwan yesterday:

Came together at 73/2 from 12.3 overs
Babar was out with the score on 155/3 from 29.4 overs

So, 82 runs from 17.1 overs. A run-rate of 4.77

And let’s add to this:

17.1 overs = 103 balls

In that partnership, these two swallowed up 55 dot balls. FIFTY-FIVE dot balls! That’s more than 50% of their partnership.

This is an ODI in the phase of the game where the field is spread, not a TEST match.

And to top it off, the wicket is not doing anything and wickets are not tumbling either.

No wonder the Indian bowlers felt free to bowl whatever line and length they wanted.

Even if half of those 55 balls would have gone for singles, our score would have been 182-2 which looks vastly different from 155. If they had shown a bit more intent surely we could have got another 5 boundaries out of FIFTY FIVE balls. Mix that with the singles and that takes the score comfortably over 200.

200-2 off 30 overs and the opposition, I don’t care who it is would be panicking, they are staring the barrel at a potential 400 score. They would have tried different things and gone off their plans.

The lower middle order and tail were pathetic yes, but this partnership is where we lost any advantage we had and handed the match on a plate to India.

 

[Kianig89]

Inviting pressure is due to lack of strike rotation or ability to play spin well, Santner Zampa Rashid and Dilly Rash that's 40 overs of Spin a stern test for Pakistan players will be commedable if they manage to play them at 5 an over without a collapse

 

[Maher96]

We usually scrape to some total, but the pressure for any new batsmen was immense.

No one looked like they settled in even for a ball. Rizwan couldn’t even complete his 50 which doesn’t happen very often.

It was like all skill had left our batsmen.

Babar needed to survive the whole match, it was all down to him. His wicket just opened the gates for the rest to fail.

Only question now is, can this group stand back up and continue winning some games and add points or will we come to a standstill now and lose 4 on the bounce.

 

[BouncerGuy]

The team plays how the captain plays. Both Babar Azam and Rohit Sharma scored fifties. One scored a 50, other scored an 80. None of them scored a hundred, but it was the approach that was the difference.

If Pakistan were chasing 190, their mindset would have been just to win the game, whether they get there in 35 or 40 overs. It is important for the captain to take responsibility. If the captain is defensive, the team will be defensive. You can’t tell the 10 other players in the room that, ‘you play positive, I will play [anchor] from one end’,”