Pakistan's biggest problem in limited overs cricket is their mindset of not getting bowled out!

[Captain caveman]

I have watched Pakistan play since 1982, i have seen all the greats imran, miandad, qadir through to the 2 Ws ,akthar, anwar, inzi , mushi, saqi, to the present lot.
What every pak team had in common was the fear of getting bowled out before the aloted overs. Now this had happened to pak team, most infamously, in the 1999 world cup final. But this fear goes back way before then, i have seen it since 1982!

So, pakistan play defencely, whilst batting(blocking or tuk tuk) until the last few overs and then go wild, trying to make up for the lost overs.
The pakistan team call this keeping wickets in hand, the truth is they are scared of getting bowled out!
There has been a couple of exceptions, such as saeed anwar, shajeel and fakhar, as well as the gungho imran nazir and afridi, but the general mindset of the team is to keep wickets for the last few overs.
This fear of not getting bowled out is denying us attacking batsman, playing up the order, instead we have defence batsman such as rizwan, haris eating up deliveries.
We have the luxury of babar, who is very consistent, so we should drop this fear of getting bowled out, especially in a 20 over match, and play 5 out and out attacking batsman, to compliment babar.
This is our only chance of winning next years world t20(along with playing our new young fast bowlers instead of the old ones but thats for another thread)

What are your thoughts, should we drop this fear of getting bowled out and play more attacking batsman or should we stick to keeping wickets in hand and try to make up the difference in the final few overs(which in t20 is almost impossible)?

 

[Muhammad Saad]

its just not the mindset we really lack in talent when it comes to big hitting.

 

[Muhammad Saad]

Surely Fakhar and Haris really tried hitting it from the go but they failed.

 

[Captain caveman]

its just not the mindset we really lack in talent when it comes to big hitting.

I disagree!
We have a few players who can hit big, but they need to be given a chance.

Ahsan ali
Kushdil shah
Mukhtar ahmed
Sohail akhtar
Naveed malik
Bimillah khan
Amir yamin

As well as some golden oldies
Kamran akmal
M. Hafeez
And the big one shajeel khan(if he can recapture his pre ban form)

Just add 3/4 of these guys into the t20 team instead of rizwan, haris(both of whom, should play odis and tests, but not t20s) .

All of the above are better players and hitters than asif ali!

 

[Muhammad Saad]

I disagree!
We have a few players who can hit big, but they need to be given a chance.

Ahsan ali
Kushdil shah
Mukhtar ahmed
Sohail akhtar
Naveed malik
Bimillah khan
Amir yamin

As well as some golden oldies
Kamran akmal
M. Hafeez
And the big one shajeel khan(if he can recapture his pre ban form)

Just add 3/4 of these guys into the t20 team instead of rizwan, haris(both of whom, should play odis and tests, but not t20s) .

All of the above are better players and hitters than asif ali!

None of the players above are doing it consistently even in domestic cricket and to the naked eye they don't look pleasing as well except Khusdhil and Akhtar , Do you really think they are comparable to international hitters like Sharma , Finch , Warner , Buttler , Stokes etc?

But I agreed they are definitely better than Haris ,Rizwan ,Asif Ali and current Fakhar Zaman as well.

 

[Captain caveman]

Surely Fakhar and Haris really tried hitting it from the go but they failed.

Haris is a quality batsman and technically very good, he should be a mainstay for our odi and test team, but hes not a t20 player and that showed in this match, as he was swinging horribly at every ball and got out.

Fakhar is also.swinging at everything, but unlike haris thats fakhar style. He needs to be more selective with his swings. Pesonally, i would give fakhar one more series, batting at 5/6 and if he fails, then replace him with another power hitter.

 

[Captain caveman]

None of the players above are doing it consistently even in domestic cricket and to the naked eye they don't look pleasing as well except Khusdhil and Akhtar , Do you really think they are comparable to international hitters like Sharma , Finch , Warner , Buttler , Stokes etc?

But I agreed they are definitely better than Haris ,Rizwan ,Asif Ali and current Fakhar Zaman as well.

Beggars can't be choosers.
We don't have the quality hitters like you mentioned above from other countries, but heres the jist - you only need 3/4 power hitters to score 30 from 20 deliveries and you have a score of 120 odd fom 80 balls, leaving 40 balls (almost 7 overs) for babar to get a 50. And you have a score of 170+. And if someone plays a blinder like ifti did today, 200 is on the cards. When you have a reliable batsman like babar, you should utilise this luxury and play powehitters(hacks if you wish) to maximise your scoring and not worry about being bowled out.

At the end of the day, its obvious, but the team who scores the most wins, so we need to maximise our scoring and not worry about being bowled out!
Also, aesthetics don't matter, as long as the batsalman can hit/slog big. 2/3 6s and 2/3 4s per power hitter will make a huge difference to the score)obviously don't ignore singles).

 

[shah_1]

No I disagree

We don't have players that can play well on both sides of the wicket. If you had seen national T20 cup matches, batsmen were extremely one dimensional, had one side to score runs. You can do well in domestic cricket becuse of poor quality bowling and planning but international level bowling is a different ball game altogether.

Stop expecting miracles from legside tullaybaz. NCA is indeed a monumental failure

 

[Captain caveman]

Obviously, international cricket is a much higher standard than pakistani domestic cricket.
I can name a few leg side batsman who have been successful in limited overs cricket eg ross taylor, bairstow etc
Finch is a tullybaz batsman as you put it, but look how successful he has been in t20, not to mention odis.
T20 is a tullybaz game, one of the best is jason roy, a complete tullybaz player.
We are not talking test cricket here, we need at least 4/5 tullybaz hacks in our t20 team, otherwise get use to scoring 130 on 200 pitch with proper batsmen like haris sohail and the less proper batsman rizwan.

 

[MenInG]

You need skills to play big shots etc - otherwise 45 All out beckons!

 

[MMHS]

It’s a valid concern to be honest. I wrote it long back (when Misbah was captain and regularly bashed for that batting approach) - sometimes between 2009 to 2011, PAK was all out probably 23 out of 29 times (don’t catch me on this, can’t check data now) - many occasions batting first, and often 50 overs was completed with No 8-11 limping towards the end in last 2-3 overs, when team should target boundary in almost every ball.

Arthur definitely had improved the batting ability, more importantly conversion ability of top order, which has improved situation - above all since MoYo at peak, PAK didn’t have a single batsman for good 10-12 years, remotely close to what is Babar now, so it looks merry. The day he gets out quickly, even now playing out 50 overs will be a challenge. Don’t want to hurt feelings, but he failed in Asia Cup and our depleted attack would have bundled PAK for less than 170 had idiot Liton not missed couple of sitters.

Going forward, with Misbah on wheels to teach boys batting as well .... I do feel playing out 50 overs will be a challenge!!!!