He was never what some PP fans here yhought he was.. as a keeper he is better than kami, then again thats not a high bar. As a batsman, he is nowhere close to kami. He did hit a purple patch a while back and now we all believe he is that good.. but he isnt. There was a reason why for the first several games during the world cup, the think tank didnt try him as opener. They knew of his capacity as a batsman. He punched above his weight when he got the chance and solidified his spot.
Years later, maybe age or a bit of bad fitness is catching up with him. He is no dhoni or gilchrist.
The sad truth is, we may not have anyother options..
Overall, he was never a better WK than Kamran. Kamran went to AUS in 2005 & Ian Chappell praised him to be the successor of Gilchrist as the best WK in world (SCG Test, Day 3), and IC hardly praises any non Aussie. Kamran was so good that he made PAK team as batsman as well & opened in ODI - in that 2-3 years patch, he was damn good with bat & gloves. May be, you can say that worse of Kamran is probably worse than Sarfraz’s worse; but his peak was way better than Sarfraz’s peak.
But, he was just like his youngest bro - not serious about developing own game. He went to UK in 2006 series hiding injury and probably got married at same time which added few stones in no time - he had a horrible series in UK with gloves & never could reach his true potential. Otherwise, by volume this guy would have broken almost every PAK domestic & international records by now.
Sarfraz was never a good keeper - at best a decent, workable one. You can check my post (probably in Rameez Raza comment thread), where I did mention that once he becomes regular in PAK team, his Keeping will go down from complacency as he is not a natural keeper - a workman like WK version of Azhar Ali, looks horrible when out of form. And, his work ethics is as poor as Kamran - I use a term for WKs - “Karman Akmal syndrome” - WK is the most cumbersome job in the game, and is a natural bunker gets the comfort of being invincible in team, Kamran Akmal (actually Akmal) syndromes can happen.
If you look at Sarfraz’s batting, it’s not that he is in poor form for which, he is putting a series of single digit scores or ducks - rather he is constantly getting out after 39-40 minutes in middle, often to a poor shots, that indicates lack of ability more than anything else. Once Mark Waugh score 5 ducks & a single in SRL, but he wasn’t dropped; then Mark Taylor went like 17 innings (or Test) without a Test 50, before scoring 334* & 100+ against PAK at Rawalpindi - he wasn’t dropped or sacked as Captain either. Because class is permanent, form is temporary - for Sarfraz, what we are watching is his class, and PCB made him captain in 3 formats based on temporary form..... hence PTC is suffering.
