PAK should try to develop a fast bowling all-rounder and unless they try it against SRL at home, do you think it should be done in English tour, come July? Among incumbents, Amad looks promising and his QeA stats are good this year - Imran was a bigger RK (& ******) at the start, but he changed his fortune by hard work; this guy Amad also has potential, age & size to his favour l, worth investing.
PAK has to be smarter & decisive about their bowler picks, particularly at home. Those UAE tracks have taken intelligence out of PAK cricket and the playing XI is often as monotonous as it can be (strategy built on Yasir bowling 85 overs from one end and may be 100 by others); but it’s time to pick horses for courses. At Pindi, in December, bring the best curator, he won’t be able to make a turner and it won’t break much with 70 overs/day Test - so, better don’t try it. Put lots of grass on the track and play four pacers - now, the batting display I have seen from PAK at Leeds, Cape Town.... if it’s green, even Lakmal, Kumara might make it 72-6 by first lunch, so a little batting protection is needed.
At Karachi, wickets will be drier, and more importantly we should get 90 overs/day, means wicket will bake by day 3 - two spinners are must and the three pacers I picked are capable of reversing it. Tactics at Karachi (since it’ll be dry wicket & 450 overs Test) should be to build good batting tracks (but not like the one gave YK his Triple) where PAK batsmen can pile up runs quickly regardless of batting first or second and 5 men attack should be able to force 20 wickets. While at Pindi, ideally it should be a 3.5 days (330 overs max) track, where Test must end in a direct W/L and PAK being home team, should fancy their chances for a win.
I am afraid the XI, the wicket & the tactics will be completely opposite of what I think - Misbah’s team won’t ever play enforcing cricket, PCB’s curators are not capable of producing wickets that forces teams to play aggressive cricket, neither Misbah, Azhar are risk takers, rather they will try to nail it down by inch - a very good chance that SRL might bail out a draw for the playing duration at Pindi and deadness at Karachi. Honestly speaking, my spirit has gone down the moment I heard that the Tests will be played in PAK - worst place to play Test cricket... that too in December.
in the squad?
