I have to agree with much of this. He also has a limited off-side game, very leg-side heavy, reminds me of Imran Farhat and nowhere near Sharjeel, let alone Saeed Anwar. Seriously lacks power, doesn’t have the fastest reflexes or back-foot game as you rightly point out and I worry about him and players like Abdullah Shafique against the better, taller bowling attacks outside Asia.
As for why Pakistan batsman suffer at international level so often, you’re picking the wrong batsman, the usual skinny, shorty-short types, no power, inability to get on top of the ball, obsessing over ‘technique’ (the most meaningless word) and form rather than the ability to play the ball on it’s merits and place the ball with requisite power and timing. These little weeds look great against often short, talentless domestic bowlers, playing all these innovative shots, but they’re never going to cut the mustard at international level and the obsession with ‘fitness’ i.e. being skinny has removed any vague semblance of power from their armoury, compounding their short stature and lack of footwork. Worst of all T20 cricket together with the Shahid Afridi brand of cricket has ruined them. The combination of short boundaries, flat pitches and humungous bats has resulted in players never bothering to learn to time the ball and Asif Ali, Haider Ali and Mohammad Haris are classic examples of this. It’s so easy to get the ball to the boundary baseball style that they never develop the ability to bat properly. It’s easy to see why Hafeez, a player who was never good enough to play for Pakistan in the 90s looks like Bradman, alongside (at times) Shoaib Malik even at their age, at least they learnt to time the ball, albeit poorly.
