POTW : Extra_Cover

[MenInG]

At a time when Misbah-ul-Haq seems to be getting a lot of negativity, its good to see a more balanced perspective as provided by this week's POTW winner.

Congratulations to [MENTION=145403]Extra_Cover[/MENTION]

http://www.pakpassion.net/ppforum/s...ohammad-Irfan-in-2019&p=10530481#post10530481

I like Misbah as the person and feel the country is really in debt to him that Pakistan cricket is still relevant at world stage after the debacle in 2010 together with the crisis the country was in. Having said that Misbah is not perfect, he has made some bad decisions during his captaincy days and is now making bad decisions in his new role too.

I believe in constructive criticism rather than blind hatred so before I list out his drawbacks credit should be given to him for following decisions so far:
1. Naming Babar as captain (this was predicted but still happened in his watch)
2. Axing Sarfraz across all formats (again predicted)
3. Selection on young pacers for international tour to Australia
4. Giving chance to domestic performers (Ifti, Khushdil and Abid)

The above decisions were good but the worrying part is that list of bad decisions outweighs the good decisions in here. In his short lived tenure the list is as follows:
1. Appointing Azhar captain in tests
2. Selection of Irfan and Wahab in limited overs games
3. Dropping Shadab and Faheem from international test tour
4. Persistence with Fakhar and Asif (clearly they both are not getting much runs so decisions will need to be made by Misbah here)
5. Selection of Imran Khan Jr. in tests (How did this happen?)
6. Selection of Akmal and Shahzad out of the blue in T20s (it killed to whatever momentum the team had)
7. Selection of players in wrong format; Haris in T20, Fakhar in T20, Ifti in tests.

My biggest worry at the moment stands that we will find Malik and Hafeez playing their farewell matches in T20 WC next year. If that happens then PCB should not call itself a professional body which runs on merit as that would be disgraceful and slap to domestic players. This is culture in this setup, a young player in domestic sees an experienced player take his spot in international matches who is inferior to him. So when this young player gets more senior and plays international matches he does the same to his juniors. This is a cycle that goes on and on and Misbah is a product of this cycle. With Wasim Khan I thought we can break this cycle and introduce merit to our cricket but I guess we just have too many players from this cycle attached to our overall setup to facilitate a change. Unfortunate but its a reality.

 

[Extra_Cover]

Thanks [MENTION=93712]MenInG[/MENTION]! I wanted to outlay my perspective on current situation of Pakistan cricket.

I would like to take this opportunity to let the community know that this is an outstanding forum and I have been part of this form for many years and every poster in here can validate that.

I will try to post more and contribute more to this forum going forward.

 

[Danyaalr01]

Good analysis on Misbah. This cycle of seniority has been going on since Imran Khan retired, unfortunately it will continue for many years to come as products of this cycle become seniors in the national side and then are given important roles in the PCB (like Misbah and many more examples).

They think this is the right way for some reason. Currently in domestic cricket the youngsters are out performing the seniors. Naseem, Sameen, Haider Ali, Shaheen Shah, Ammad Butt, Aamer Yamin etc are out performing the likes of Imran Khan Sr, Muhammad Irfan, Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq but they are Juniors. Only a hand full of them get picked and are often forgotten and rot in the domestic system for many years and are picked back up when they are past their prime.

Misbah was also picked, forgotten and picked years later, he was a senior when he was picked again and became an integral part of the team. He obviously thought this was the way things should be done.

 

[Saj]

Thanks [MENTION=93712]MenInG[/MENTION]! I wanted to outlay my perspective on current situation of Pakistan cricket.

I would like to take this opportunity to let the community know that this is an outstanding forum and I have been part of this form for many years and every poster in here can validate that.

I will try to post more and contribute more to this forum going forward.

Thanks.

Well done on potw.

 

[MenInG]

Thanks [MENTION=93712]MenInG[/MENTION]! I wanted to outlay my perspective on current situation of Pakistan cricket.

I would like to take this opportunity to let the community know that this is an outstanding forum and I have been part of this form for many years and every poster in here can validate that.

I will try to post more and contribute more to this forum going forward.

Many thanks and well done again!

 

[Junaids]

Congratulations on a thoughtful and balanced post.

But I think the OP is too charitable: people like Iftikhar are not “domestic performers” they are the Chief Selector’s cronies.

Domestic performance for Test consideration should be this season’s performances.

So Zafar Gohar and Sami Aslam, not inferior veterans like Kashif Bhatti and Abid Ali.

And certainly not Imran Khan instead of Ehsan Adil and Sameen Gul.

It’s great to be even-handed. But some people act in such a predictably appalling way that it’s hard to find positives to praise.