Excuses excuses. Hafeez more then made up for it in the second half of the inning. Malik did not get out attacking. If Malik had stayed in we would have won the game as balls wasted by Tanvir would have been utilised.
Correct.
I don't people targeting guys that are performing. Yes Hafeez should have stayed in till the end. But he scored 40 over SR 100. At got us to the point where the target seemed pretty manageable, run rate of 8 with two set batsmen at the crease. Cricket isn't a game where you expect one guy to win it single-handedly for you like some fans on here expect. It's a team game. Some others apart from just Hafeez and Umar akmal really should have stood up.
I'm not really a fan of packing a team with mecurial matchwinners who occasionally perform. Who cares if we win one magical match in 50. We won't to develop a consistent side, with consistent players. It creates a more formidable aura too, and strengthens the side. People say why can't we have the batting matchwinners of India. People also forget they also average 30s a lot of them in T20s. Thus the chances of them performing are much higher.
Jamshed and Umar are the only ones who really are consistent in their batting in T20. They deserve their places on batting alone.
Hafeez deserves his place as a bowler in T20. He's not a great bat, but even then he seems to be averaging 20 or so which is around the average is our specialist batsmen. So he should probably take the all rounder slot. Should also probably move down the order as most all rounders do to, even if it's just down to three. Get Shehzad and Jamshed opening who IMO is the opening partnership in Pakistani domestic T20 anyway.
But guys like Malik are just passengers in the side. They aren't performing, and it's not worth carrying them. I supported Malik's recall before as I felt he earnt it via domestic performances, but he's been terrible for a long time, we can't wait for him to get back his form. And by his domestic performances, sadly to say I was expecting especially in T20 that he'd come back much improved and in good form. How wrong was I though.
Same kind of goes for Afridi at the moment, but he isn't as bad as Malik, and in general over his T20 career he's been excellent. But don't see the point waiting for him to get back into form when Raza's already doing the job and was our best bowler of the tournament (even ahead of ajmal IMO).
Same goes to Nazir too, whom I hope we don't persist with after this tournament. Looked even worse than he did before.
nveer
Abbas
