So, this is going to sound extremely harsh and inhumane, but I can´t help but agree with the sentiment of this thread - to a certain degree, at least. Actually, the first person who brought my attention to the fact that Nawaz panicked and goofed up twice was my cousin´s husband who mentioned it only yesterday and, whilst it sounded like an interesting thought to me, then I saw this thread pop up on my screen whilst browsing through the forum.
Well, instead of putting the whole blame on one man - which is an extremely harsh thing to do - I would just say that, had Nawaz held his nerves and seen the team through twice in a row, all of Pakistan´s faults and flaws would´ve been covered by it, and the same team would´ve been hailed as great by the media, experts, and the fans. However, on the contrary, he ended up panicking in most crucial phases of the two matches. I know that he was given the last over, and maybe 16 was a little less for him to defend, given the fact that he had, by then, proven to be a soft target for the Indian batsmen, but we must remember that 13 were required off just three deliveries at one stage, and that´s when the meltdown happened. Then in the match against Zimbabwe, three off three should´ve been chased down, as Wasim Junior had made his job much easier by hitting that much required boundary in the last over, but a dot ball happened, and then he panicked immediately and got out off the very next ball, trying to go for a boundary.
It´s sad for him, actually, if you ask me. These two occasions will haunt him in his thought process for a while and that´s not a good thing. He´s a lower-order hitter and will be faced with such situations multiple times even in the future - this is certain to happen - and him having such a bitter past experience of such a close encounter (of a one-run loss) won´t help him stay in the moment in the future, when faced with a similar situation again. As for his bowling, I remember him defending almost run-a-ball or perhaps even less for Quetta in an absolute nail-biter of a Qualifier in PSL 2016, and Quetta would often turn to him in similar situation. So, I´m a little surprised that he didn´t handle the situation better a couple of times recently: in the ongoing T20 World Cup and in the Asia Cup T20 some time ago.
Still, though, we must, absolutely must, bear in mind that two of Pakistan´s most iconic wins this year - the one against India in September and then in the Final of the tri-series in New Zealand - came with massive help from Nawaz. So, he has given the fans some really good memories as well this particular year. I still maintain hope in his all-round abilities. Go, Nawaz, go - and I don´t mean the opposite of what I´ve just meant, the other being a famous political slogan in our country.
, and on one hand we've got Pakistan's Nawaz who walked off against South Africa, assuming that he was run-out, although it was a dead-ball once the umpire (wrongly) gave him out LBW. It was very odd on his part. Pakistan must teach their players such fine lines of the rules of the game. Even I knew it straight away watching it from the TV that it was a dead-ball, why didn't Nawaz know about it? So, the players must show more game awareness in such situations. I'm not singling out Nawaz here for anything, as I otherwise think that it was a good innings by him. It was him and Iftikhar who led Pakistan's recovery after a horrible start, before Shadab came in and completely took away the game from the opposition. So, it was a valuable little cameo by him, once again underlining his value to this team.
