Bilal Ahmad15
Local Club Regular
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2018
- Runs
- 1,582
- Post of the Week
- 4
(This post is also a very late review of the recent test match)
First Australia-Pakistan Test Match in Rawalpindi deserves to be put in the rubbish bin forever. Pathetic on all levels. This was the match that confirmed the aim of Pakistan cricket/ PCB is to be cowards. This is now their aim.
Let's start with the most obvious failure to this awful test match. The Pitch. I have read here and heard by commentators, that the Rawalpindi pitch will suit fast bowlers, therefore if they had prepared a normal pitch for Rawalpindi, we would have seen an interesting outcome and a lot more interesting match. But Because they were so afraid, what they did is they went to some Rawalpindi Highway road, did the measurements, took out a big chunk of this road, transferred it and placed it in the Pindi stadium as a "drop-in pitch", and painted it yellow/ brown. If you want to prove me then come at me! come at me!
Unfortunately, it seems as though they have adopted the Babar Azam "stats safety" coward mentality.
And because of this awful pitch, came an awful test match. completely boring, dominated too much by batting, 700 for 4 wickets. Not much needs to be said. Nothing to support any bowler. the majority/ all of the wickets came from the mistake of the batsman rather than it being a good ball.
Pakistan First Innings - Now a lot of people heavily criticised the slow run rate by Imam Ul-Haq and Azhar Ali. Although it was frustrating to see I can deal with this. Their intention of building a solid platform (by having huge maiutn of runs) was the right move, so I can let the slow run rate pass through.
Australia Innings - Australia scored at a much faster rate with their opening partnership at first, with Khawaja playing an ODI, since he was 40 (49) balls at one stage. And big reason is because of the bowlers that are chosen;
With Faheem Ashraf and Hassan Ali, Pakistans two best test bowlers, gone, the intelligent thing to do is to select bowlers that are experienced and young, rather than hyping and fast-tracking some heavily inexperienced youngsters. But guess what they do? They select Haris Rauf (4 FC matches), simply because he bowls really fast and won PSL, Naseem Shah (23 FC matches, which is actually decent for Pakistans extremely low standards), and Muhammad Wasim Jr??? why they chose him, probably because the management didn't want him to miss out on the cake celebration after the match, (He has played 7 FC matches).
I wouldn't have selected Naseem Shah, because unlike what a lot people think here, Naseem Shah is still not ready for Test Cricket. We saw that with his spray gun, inaccurate bowling, the only fast bowler who was very expensive (ignoring the very short spells the aussie pace bowlers bowled in the Pakistan second innings). Which is why it was a bad desicon to play him in a two-man pace attack, if it was a three-man pace attack, then his selection wouldn't have been so bad.
And lets not forget Shaheen, my all-time favourite player, the man who just won Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy and a dream PSL title, legendary performance against India in WT20 is at the end of the day, not a top-class test bowler. After the new ball spell, his impact and threat reduces heavily
Please someone tell him; For the love of God, please stop bowling around the wicket so much.
The only top-class preformnce was in the West Indies series, other than that, he hasn't been good enough and/or got wickets against way too many minnows.
So who did I want to be selected instead? Not only just Muhammad Abbas, but Mir Hamza, Sameen Gul, since these guys have more FC experience than the others that got fast-tracked. Possibly even Shahnawaz Dahani. Yes, Muhammad Abbas is finished, but remember, Faheem and Hassan Ali are injured, so you have to chose Muhammad Abbas.
The Big Blunder - Selecting a two-man pace attack. Im going to be honest, I had selected Iftikhar Ahmed fir my lineup, because this whole time I thought he was a genuine all-rounder, but it turns out he is a part-time bowler. He bowled, so few overs, plus was exenise, I am sure there are many part-time bolwers who are better than Iftikhar. And so, sleetcign him was a waste of a spot really, for a third fast bowler.
As of now, anyone that bats below Mohammad Rizwan must be either a Bowler, or a proper All-rounder (preferably a bowling All-rounder)
Because The bastmen and batting ability of the Pakistan all-rounders is pretty good at the moment.
Pakistan Second Innings - The Coward Innings - As I said I can forgive the slow run rate in the first innings, but this innings on Day 5 I cannot. Basically, at first Imam and Abdullah Shafique had a good, fast run rate of 4+ in the first thirty overs I think, but then they start going slow for a really long while... What my problem is they didn't go for the win, they went for the draw and batted slowly for their centuries. Yes, I know that there was absolutely no chance of Pakistan winning this test match, even if the test match was 10 days, but you still go for the win!!!
In terms of 'batting fast, declaring and trying to win', Imams innings was disappointing, but Abdullah Shafiuqes innings was pathetic. 40 of 100 balls, come on. He only speeds up when he is approaching his hundred. And that's where the stats paddling mentality topic comes in. I am pretty sure Babars plan was for these two to play for the hundreds, who cares about playing for the win...
I was meant to post this a few days ago, so I have lost the train of thought. But basically, a lot of people have been saying "This is Misbahs doing, Misbahs fault, Tuk Tuk effects have been seen in this test match" But what about Babar Azam and his stats safety mentality?
I only started watching cricket in 2016 , so I didn't watch a lot of matches Misbah played, but I am pretty sure he would've gone for the win in this test match.
1st day of Karachi test, as we have seen, is also pathetic.
First Australia-Pakistan Test Match in Rawalpindi deserves to be put in the rubbish bin forever. Pathetic on all levels. This was the match that confirmed the aim of Pakistan cricket/ PCB is to be cowards. This is now their aim.
Let's start with the most obvious failure to this awful test match. The Pitch. I have read here and heard by commentators, that the Rawalpindi pitch will suit fast bowlers, therefore if they had prepared a normal pitch for Rawalpindi, we would have seen an interesting outcome and a lot more interesting match. But Because they were so afraid, what they did is they went to some Rawalpindi Highway road, did the measurements, took out a big chunk of this road, transferred it and placed it in the Pindi stadium as a "drop-in pitch", and painted it yellow/ brown. If you want to prove me then come at me! come at me!
Unfortunately, it seems as though they have adopted the Babar Azam "stats safety" coward mentality.
And because of this awful pitch, came an awful test match. completely boring, dominated too much by batting, 700 for 4 wickets. Not much needs to be said. Nothing to support any bowler. the majority/ all of the wickets came from the mistake of the batsman rather than it being a good ball.
Pakistan First Innings - Now a lot of people heavily criticised the slow run rate by Imam Ul-Haq and Azhar Ali. Although it was frustrating to see I can deal with this. Their intention of building a solid platform (by having huge maiutn of runs) was the right move, so I can let the slow run rate pass through.
Australia Innings - Australia scored at a much faster rate with their opening partnership at first, with Khawaja playing an ODI, since he was 40 (49) balls at one stage. And big reason is because of the bowlers that are chosen;
With Faheem Ashraf and Hassan Ali, Pakistans two best test bowlers, gone, the intelligent thing to do is to select bowlers that are experienced and young, rather than hyping and fast-tracking some heavily inexperienced youngsters. But guess what they do? They select Haris Rauf (4 FC matches), simply because he bowls really fast and won PSL, Naseem Shah (23 FC matches, which is actually decent for Pakistans extremely low standards), and Muhammad Wasim Jr??? why they chose him, probably because the management didn't want him to miss out on the cake celebration after the match, (He has played 7 FC matches).
I wouldn't have selected Naseem Shah, because unlike what a lot people think here, Naseem Shah is still not ready for Test Cricket. We saw that with his spray gun, inaccurate bowling, the only fast bowler who was very expensive (ignoring the very short spells the aussie pace bowlers bowled in the Pakistan second innings). Which is why it was a bad desicon to play him in a two-man pace attack, if it was a three-man pace attack, then his selection wouldn't have been so bad.
And lets not forget Shaheen, my all-time favourite player, the man who just won Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy and a dream PSL title, legendary performance against India in WT20 is at the end of the day, not a top-class test bowler. After the new ball spell, his impact and threat reduces heavily
Please someone tell him; For the love of God, please stop bowling around the wicket so much.
The only top-class preformnce was in the West Indies series, other than that, he hasn't been good enough and/or got wickets against way too many minnows.
So who did I want to be selected instead? Not only just Muhammad Abbas, but Mir Hamza, Sameen Gul, since these guys have more FC experience than the others that got fast-tracked. Possibly even Shahnawaz Dahani. Yes, Muhammad Abbas is finished, but remember, Faheem and Hassan Ali are injured, so you have to chose Muhammad Abbas.
The Big Blunder - Selecting a two-man pace attack. Im going to be honest, I had selected Iftikhar Ahmed fir my lineup, because this whole time I thought he was a genuine all-rounder, but it turns out he is a part-time bowler. He bowled, so few overs, plus was exenise, I am sure there are many part-time bolwers who are better than Iftikhar. And so, sleetcign him was a waste of a spot really, for a third fast bowler.
As of now, anyone that bats below Mohammad Rizwan must be either a Bowler, or a proper All-rounder (preferably a bowling All-rounder)
Because The bastmen and batting ability of the Pakistan all-rounders is pretty good at the moment.
Pakistan Second Innings - The Coward Innings - As I said I can forgive the slow run rate in the first innings, but this innings on Day 5 I cannot. Basically, at first Imam and Abdullah Shafique had a good, fast run rate of 4+ in the first thirty overs I think, but then they start going slow for a really long while... What my problem is they didn't go for the win, they went for the draw and batted slowly for their centuries. Yes, I know that there was absolutely no chance of Pakistan winning this test match, even if the test match was 10 days, but you still go for the win!!!
In terms of 'batting fast, declaring and trying to win', Imams innings was disappointing, but Abdullah Shafiuqes innings was pathetic. 40 of 100 balls, come on. He only speeds up when he is approaching his hundred. And that's where the stats paddling mentality topic comes in. I am pretty sure Babars plan was for these two to play for the hundreds, who cares about playing for the win...
I was meant to post this a few days ago, so I have lost the train of thought. But basically, a lot of people have been saying "This is Misbahs doing, Misbahs fault, Tuk Tuk effects have been seen in this test match" But what about Babar Azam and his stats safety mentality?
I only started watching cricket in 2016 , so I didn't watch a lot of matches Misbah played, but I am pretty sure he would've gone for the win in this test match.
1st day of Karachi test, as we have seen, is also pathetic.
