Savak
World Star
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2006
- Runs
- 50,276
- Post of the Week
- 3
When Australia lost the Ashes series in 2005, they ended the careers of Damien Martyn, Jason Gillespie, Michael Kasprowicz for good. This was the first real bad series these players had but such was the passion and intensity with which Australia hates losing and takes losses seriously that the past services of these players was unemotionally ignored and the selectors punished the players for letting down the country. Even a legendary Shane Warne was dropped by Steve Waugh in the best interests of the team.
By and large in comparison to most countries around the world. Australia has a very ruthless culture and they do not tolerate defeats at home at all and everytime Australia has lost a series at home midway for the final test matches they have revamped the squad replacing all the non performing players. However Steve Waugh in a recent interview has implored the Australian selectors that the talent stocks and quality coming from the Australian Domestic Cricket is just not the same and that the selectors needed to embrace the best players they had and back them to the extreme and even sucking up defeats in the process.
I believe other countries in comparison have a far more laid back culture and they are only seriously pressed to make changes when the team has been on a serious losing streak for 6-12 months.
India is a close example, the speed at which they terminated the careers of Sehwag, Harbhajan, Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, VVS Laxman by 2012-13 is another example even though the vast majority of these players were central to India's 2011 WC win and rise to the top of the test rankings.
In comparison Pakistan has been languishing at the bottom of the rankings in all formats for the last 10 years. We have lost all our major test series against our strongest opponents and the speed with which our test ranking has fallen from no 1 to 7 only serves to show artificial it all was.
The shocking part is Pakistan by and large has been playing and rotating the same cycle of players in the last 10 years. I believe Pakistani selectors in the last 10 years have never really held certain players to account for their failures to perform for the team when they needed the players to really deliver. The vast majority of our players are masters of soft runs ie scoring that one big knock when there is no pressure, easiest batting conditions, less stressful match situation ie both Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq and still look and bat like debutants in their 60th and 70th test matches. For me these players are no better than the likes of Haris Sohail, Shan Masood, Inam ul Haq given that they fail when the team needs them the most and therefore they create no fear factor with the opposition.
For how long will we adopt the grinding approach to batting in all formats of the game? In all the playing conditions and pitches of the world? We have already seen the impact of this batting approach where our team continues to lose in the UAE against the likes of NZ and Sri Lanka.
There is a fine line with continuity for the sake of stability and continuing with mediocrity. I am personally a little shocked that no one in the playing 11 has been made accountable for the NZ defeat.
I personally feel that dropping certain players purely on the basis that they play for their own milestones at the expense of the team, play irresponsible shots and throw their wickets away after getting set, axing a captain due to his non existent individual performance, get out after scoring a 450 ball hundred, turn up unfit to training camp etc will be a good start etc will all serve well to send the message across to the teams and players that they have to embrace the modern era and anyone not falling in line will make way for others that will be hungry to avail their chances.
By and large in comparison to most countries around the world. Australia has a very ruthless culture and they do not tolerate defeats at home at all and everytime Australia has lost a series at home midway for the final test matches they have revamped the squad replacing all the non performing players. However Steve Waugh in a recent interview has implored the Australian selectors that the talent stocks and quality coming from the Australian Domestic Cricket is just not the same and that the selectors needed to embrace the best players they had and back them to the extreme and even sucking up defeats in the process.
I believe other countries in comparison have a far more laid back culture and they are only seriously pressed to make changes when the team has been on a serious losing streak for 6-12 months.
India is a close example, the speed at which they terminated the careers of Sehwag, Harbhajan, Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, VVS Laxman by 2012-13 is another example even though the vast majority of these players were central to India's 2011 WC win and rise to the top of the test rankings.
In comparison Pakistan has been languishing at the bottom of the rankings in all formats for the last 10 years. We have lost all our major test series against our strongest opponents and the speed with which our test ranking has fallen from no 1 to 7 only serves to show artificial it all was.
The shocking part is Pakistan by and large has been playing and rotating the same cycle of players in the last 10 years. I believe Pakistani selectors in the last 10 years have never really held certain players to account for their failures to perform for the team when they needed the players to really deliver. The vast majority of our players are masters of soft runs ie scoring that one big knock when there is no pressure, easiest batting conditions, less stressful match situation ie both Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq and still look and bat like debutants in their 60th and 70th test matches. For me these players are no better than the likes of Haris Sohail, Shan Masood, Inam ul Haq given that they fail when the team needs them the most and therefore they create no fear factor with the opposition.
For how long will we adopt the grinding approach to batting in all formats of the game? In all the playing conditions and pitches of the world? We have already seen the impact of this batting approach where our team continues to lose in the UAE against the likes of NZ and Sri Lanka.
There is a fine line with continuity for the sake of stability and continuing with mediocrity. I am personally a little shocked that no one in the playing 11 has been made accountable for the NZ defeat.
I personally feel that dropping certain players purely on the basis that they play for their own milestones at the expense of the team, play irresponsible shots and throw their wickets away after getting set, axing a captain due to his non existent individual performance, get out after scoring a 450 ball hundred, turn up unfit to training camp etc will be a good start etc will all serve well to send the message across to the teams and players that they have to embrace the modern era and anyone not falling in line will make way for others that will be hungry to avail their chances.