Takeaways from Pakistan vs Australia (2022 Test Series)

[Extra_Cover]

Pakistan was playing a 3 test match series after a very very long time so it was refreshing to shift from T20s onto test cricket and that too for a 3 match series rather than a 2 match formality series. The best aspect about this series is that this series actually happened after what happened last Oct/Nov through NZ and England pull outs. At least we can now expect teams to start touring Pakistan and not pull out of tours.

Coming onto cricket this has been on of the most negative series we have seen of late. Recently most of the test matches yield result and draws became an anomaly or draws happened when most of the days were rained out. However for this series to yield draw after draw after particularly boring cricket being played was test of nerves for the fans and especially those people who were at the ground. As usual I would try to identify the takeaways for Pakistan cricket from this series below.

THE GOOD

The Core
Undoubtedly the core of this test team are following players.
- Babar Azam
- Rizwan
- Shaheen Shah
All of them had a decent series and the signs are very good to build the team around these core players. It goes without saying that you can only build a strong team if the core holding them is strong and this is a strong core for Pakistan cricket.

Supporting players to the core / Find for Pakistan
During the series we have seen some very decent performances from Abdullah Shafique and Naseem Shah.
On Shafique, he is going to be part of this team for a long time. I particularly like his balance on the crease and from what I have seen so far he has got all the shots in the book so he has a gameplan for wickets around the world. I expect him to do well on overseas tour as well for a simple fact that he is not a limited player. Another major plus point is that he is not mentally weak like most Pakistan young players are. His temperament is very good and it would only get better going forward.
Naseem Shah had a very good series, in fact he outbowled Shaheen Shah especially in the 3rd test. His pace was up and his action was more like what he had in his early days. During Waqar tenure Naseem got less side on and hence lost his rhythm however he is back to his side on bowling action after Waqar has gone which has yielded increase pace and better seam position. I would like Naseem to play county season but at same time I don't want him to miss out on test cricket as there is not many bowlers better than him that can replace him. PCB has to be careful in managing his workload though.


THE BAD

Spin twins
It was very depressing to see Sajid and Nauman being absolutely toothless in all 3 tests. Whilst they didn't get to ball on day 5 wickets I'm quite confident they wouldn't have made difference either. I'm not overly critical of both of them given the wickets were horrible and only took turn on Day 5 when they both didn't get the chance to bowl. I'm also not supportive of significant changes in the lineup on the back of a series. However, heads would need to roll after such a horrible outing and if we are to drop 1 of the 2 it has to be Nauman. One of the main reason for dropping Nauman is simply because he is way more negative than Sajid. Nauman was first one to come up to Babar and suggest bowling over the wicket into the rough when there was no need to do so. Sajid might not be great but atleast bowls more challenging lines. Also Sajid has an edge over Nauman due to fielding. Having said the above both of them should never play in SENA conditions.

Timid batting or just limited batsmen?
I see a lot of threads on here that our batsmen are timid whilst I'm of the opinion that they are just not good enough. Azhar is the prime example of this. From all the high scores in his career most of them have not resulted in wins for Pakistan meaning his runs do not carry weightage on the results of the game. Given we have now got Imam in our team who is again a limited batsman or should I say timid there is no need for Azhar anymore. At best we can only carry 1 such batsman which going forward would be Imam. PCB has to take a bold step in here and ask Azhar to retire with grace.
On Fawad Alam, I'm not going to write much as writing is on the wall and he should not play anymore matches for Pakistan going forward.

Hasan Ali
Someone on this forum posted that Hasan Ali has already overachieved in his career given his lack of abilities and skill. The last year or so has been horrible for Hasan. For me personally the contributions Hasan has had in important losses of prior year is good enough to keep him away from team. I'm talking about 2 dropped catches one in WI test match and one in semi final of T20 world cup. If Hasan cannot contribute on dusty wickets prone to reverse then he is not good for elsewhere. If we have Faheem Ashraf who bowls similar stuff to Hasan Ali there is unfortunately not place for Hasan anymore.

THE WORST

Pitches
Absolute disgrace has been pitches in the first 2 matches of the series with Lahore one being slightly better at best. PCB needs massive investment in curators and improving pitches as we have an important home season coming up and we cannot afford to lose points due to disgraceful pitches.

Captaincy
The captaincy throughout has been absolute shambles. Even in village cricket people don't revert to negative lines at the start of match like Babar did in Day 1 of the match. There was no thought process or plans on display at all. Cummins was head and shoulders above anything Babar could have mustered in the captaincy during the series. Babar needs significant schooling on captaincy if we are to stick with him as captain across formats.

TEST TEAM GOING FORWARD
I have proposed the following recommendation in our test lineups for home and SENA conditions.

[table="width: 500, class: grid"]
[tr]
[td][/td]
[td]HOME[/td]
[td]SENA[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]1[/td]
[td]Abdullah Shafique[/td]
[td]Abdullah Shafique[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2[/td]
[td]Imam ul Haq[/td]
[td]Imam ul Haq[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]3[/td]
[td]Shan Masood[/td]
[td]Shan Masood[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]4[/td]
[td]Babar Azam (c)[/td]
[td]Babar Azam (c)[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]5[/td]
[td]Kamran Ghulam[/td]
[td]Kamran Ghulam[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]6[/td]
[td]Rizwan (wk)[/td]
[td]Rizwan (wk)[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]7[/td]
[td]Shadab Khan[/td]
[td]Shadab Khan[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]8[/td]
[td]Nawaz[/td]
[td]Faheem Ashraf[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]9[/td]
[td]Sajid Khan[/td]
[td]Dahani[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]10[/td]
[td]Shaheen Shah[/td]
[td]Shaheen Shah[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]11[/td]
[td]Naseem Shah[/td]
[td]Naseem Shah[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

Kamran Ghulam is an absolute must going forward in our team given how well he has been playing for over a year now. I'm also inclined to bring Shan Masood in place of Azhar Ali given Shan has been finding form as well. There is a lot of talk about Saud Shakeel being around but Saud missing out on FC cricket does not help his case. Shadab Khan is a must going forward as our SENA spinner and home leg spinner. He is a much improved bowler and can add the useful contributions in our test team.

Its time to ditch deadweight and bring in match winners as there are potentially too many points to win in the remainder of this year.

 

[Varun]

Fantastic analysis. Deserves to be POTW.

 

[PakEngFan]

Nice squads I will replace Saud with Shan though.

 

[sweep_shot]

Great post. Well done.

I think these are the takeaways from this series:

- Naseem has improved and can probably replace Hasan Ali.
- Time for Fawad and Azhar to be gone.
- Babar should not be the captain.
- Both Nauman and Sajid should be replaced.

 

[GoUgandaCranes]

It's time to skip a generation and get Huraira and Haider in the team. Imam is a good nice funny lad but he shouldn't be playing cricket for Pakistan currently. Sajid Khan is the same and Hasan should simply be replaced by Nasim Shah.

Lahore type of pitch should be the template for Pakistan, and they should get in three fast bowlers and two all-rounders. Fawad should be replaced with Saud who is younger and has a fair chance to prove his worth.

A team like

Abdullah
Huraira
Saud
Babar
Haider/KG
Rizwan
Nawaz/Fahim
Shadab
Shaheen
Rauf/Dahani
Naseem

has the potential to be a decent team in the future. We have enough pace that we can outdo teams on slow pitches with reverse swing. Enough of the same go slow type batters so a Haider/Fakhar type induction in the middle is necessary to break the template.

 

[Ashmal]

Naseem Shah, Abdullah Shafique, Babar(the batsman) have been the positives.

The team needs an overhaul.

Imam/Azhar/Fawad/Nauman/Sajid all need to go.

 

[PakEngFan]

It's time to skip a generation and get Huraira and Haider in the team. Imam is a good nice funny lad but he shouldn't be playing cricket for Pakistan currently. Sajid Khan is the same and Hasan should simply be replaced by Nasim Shah.

Lahore type of pitch should be the template for Pakistan, and they should get in three fast bowlers and two all-rounders. Fawad should be replaced with Saud who is younger and has a fair chance to prove his worth.

A team like

Abdullah
Huraira
Saud
Babar
Haider/KG
Rizwan
Nawaz/Fahim
Shadab
Shaheen
Rauf/Dahani
Naseem

has the potential to be a decent team in the future. We have enough pace that we can outdo teams on slow pitches with reverse swing. Enough of the same go slow type batters so a Haider/Fakhar type induction in the middle is necessary to break the template.

This is a perfect team.

 

[WengerOut]

Imam scoring runs might not be the greatest thing in the long run.

 

[ban1982]

100% agree. his twin centuries in the 1st test may be the worst thing to happen to Pakistan cricket team in the last 2 years.

 

[Amjid Javed]

excellent Analysis. Apart from Saud shakeel should be the number 3 and not shan masood.

There was never a need for 2 spinners in side in any game. We have plenty of players in top 6 who could have filled in and down a job to bowl overs required. we need to start picking 3 proper seamers and 1 spinner for tests going forward.

 

[Amjid Javed]

Pakistan was playing a 3 test match series after a very very long time so it was refreshing to shift from T20s onto test cricket and that too for a 3 match series rather than a 2 match formality series. The best aspect about this series is that this series actually happened after what happened last Oct/Nov through NZ and England pull outs. At least we can now expect teams to start touring Pakistan and not pull out of tours.

Coming onto cricket this has been on of the most negative series we have seen of late. Recently most of the test matches yield result and draws became an anomaly or draws happened when most of the days were rained out. However for this series to yield draw after draw after particularly boring cricket being played was test of nerves for the fans and especially those people who were at the ground. As usual I would try to identify the takeaways for Pakistan cricket from this series below.

THE GOOD

The Core
Undoubtedly the core of this test team are following players.
- Babar Azam
- Rizwan
- Shaheen Shah
All of them had a decent series and the signs are very good to build the team around these core players. It goes without saying that you can only build a strong team if the core holding them is strong and this is a strong core for Pakistan cricket.

Supporting players to the core / Find for Pakistan
During the series we have seen some very decent performances from Abdullah Shafique and Naseem Shah.
On Shafique, he is going to be part of this team for a long time. I particularly like his balance on the crease and from what I have seen so far he has got all the shots in the book so he has a gameplan for wickets around the world. I expect him to do well on overseas tour as well for a simple fact that he is not a limited player. Another major plus point is that he is not mentally weak like most Pakistan young players are. His temperament is very good and it would only get better going forward.
Naseem Shah had a very good series, in fact he outbowled Shaheen Shah especially in the 3rd test. His pace was up and his action was more like what he had in his early days. During Waqar tenure Naseem got less side on and hence lost his rhythm however he is back to his side on bowling action after Waqar has gone which has yielded increase pace and better seam position. I would like Naseem to play county season but at same time I don't want him to miss out on test cricket as there is not many bowlers better than him that can replace him. PCB has to be careful in managing his workload though.


THE BAD

Spin twins
It was very depressing to see Sajid and Nauman being absolutely toothless in all 3 tests. Whilst they didn't get to ball on day 5 wickets I'm quite confident they wouldn't have made difference either. I'm not overly critical of both of them given the wickets were horrible and only took turn on Day 5 when they both didn't get the chance to bowl. I'm also not supportive of significant changes in the lineup on the back of a series. However, heads would need to roll after such a horrible outing and if we are to drop 1 of the 2 it has to be Nauman. One of the main reason for dropping Nauman is simply because he is way more negative than Sajid. Nauman was first one to come up to Babar and suggest bowling over the wicket into the rough when there was no need to do so. Sajid might not be great but atleast bowls more challenging lines. Also Sajid has an edge over Nauman due to fielding. Having said the above both of them should never play in SENA conditions.

Timid batting or just limited batsmen?
I see a lot of threads on here that our batsmen are timid whilst I'm of the opinion that they are just not good enough. Azhar is the prime example of this. From all the high scores in his career most of them have not resulted in wins for Pakistan meaning his runs do not carry weightage on the results of the game. Given we have now got Imam in our team who is again a limited batsman or should I say timid there is no need for Azhar anymore. At best we can only carry 1 such batsman which going forward would be Imam. PCB has to take a bold step in here and ask Azhar to retire with grace.
On Fawad Alam, I'm not going to write much as writing is on the wall and he should not play anymore matches for Pakistan going forward.

Hasan Ali
Someone on this forum posted that Hasan Ali has already overachieved in his career given his lack of abilities and skill. The last year or so has been horrible for Hasan. For me personally the contributions Hasan has had in important losses of prior year is good enough to keep him away from team. I'm talking about 2 dropped catches one in WI test match and one in semi final of T20 world cup. If Hasan cannot contribute on dusty wickets prone to reverse then he is not good for elsewhere. If we have Faheem Ashraf who bowls similar stuff to Hasan Ali there is unfortunately not place for Hasan anymore.

THE WORST

Pitches
Absolute disgrace has been pitches in the first 2 matches of the series with Lahore one being slightly better at best. PCB needs massive investment in curators and improving pitches as we have an important home season coming up and we cannot afford to lose points due to disgraceful pitches.

Captaincy
The captaincy throughout has been absolute shambles. Even in village cricket people don't revert to negative lines at the start of match like Babar did in Day 1 of the match. There was no thought process or plans on display at all. Cummins was head and shoulders above anything Babar could have mustered in the captaincy during the series. Babar needs significant schooling on captaincy if we are to stick with him as captain across formats.

TEST TEAM GOING FORWARD
I have proposed the following recommendation in our test lineups for home and SENA conditions.

[table="width: 500, class: grid"]
[tr]
[td][/td]
[td]HOME[/td]
[td]SENA[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]1[/td]
[td]Abdullah Shafique[/td]
[td]Abdullah Shafique[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2[/td]
[td]Imam ul Haq[/td]
[td]Imam ul Haq[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]3[/td]
[td]Shan Masood[/td]
[td]Shan Masood[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]4[/td]
[td]Babar Azam (c)[/td]
[td]Babar Azam (c)[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]5[/td]
[td]Kamran Ghulam[/td]
[td]Kamran Ghulam[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]6[/td]
[td]Rizwan (wk)[/td]
[td]Rizwan (wk)[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]7[/td]
[td]Shadab Khan[/td]
[td]Shadab Khan[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]8[/td]
[td]Nawaz[/td]
[td]Faheem Ashraf[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]9[/td]
[td]Sajid Khan[/td]
[td]Dahani[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]10[/td]
[td]Shaheen Shah[/td]
[td]Shaheen Shah[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]11[/td]
[td]Naseem Shah[/td]
[td]Naseem Shah[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

Kamran Ghulam is an absolute must going forward in our team given how well he has been playing for over a year now. I'm also inclined to bring Shan Masood in place of Azhar Ali given Shan has been finding form as well. There is a lot of talk about Saud Shakeel being around but Saud missing out on FC cricket does not help his case. Shadab Khan is a must going forward as our SENA spinner and home leg spinner. He is a much improved bowler and can add the useful contributions in our test team.

Its time to ditch deadweight and bring in match winners as there are potentially too many points to win in the remainder of this year.

2 seamers is not enough for home tests, we need to be picking 3 and 1 front line spinner. remaining spin option comes from a spinning all rounder or someone in the top 6 bowling.

pace has more effect than spin in pakistan it always has and always will. we dont play on pitches were two front line spinners are needed.

 

[Extra_Cover]

2 seamers is not enough for home tests, we need to be picking 3 and 1 front line spinner. remaining spin option comes from a spinning all rounder or someone in the top 6 bowling.

pace has more effect than spin in pakistan it always has and always will. we dont play on pitches were two front line spinners are needed.

Depends on pitches. Apart from Pindi stadium no other stadium is seam friendly. If Pakistan can tailor their wickets like India / Bangladesh / Sri Lanka has done then 2 fast bowlers should be fine if not then yeah there is an argument to have another pacer in side.

 

[Amjid Javed]

Depends on pitches. Apart from Pindi stadium no other stadium is seam friendly. If Pakistan can tailor their wickets like India / Bangladesh / Sri Lanka has done then 2 fast bowlers should be fine if not then yeah there is an argument to have another pacer in side.

We got ideal wickets during SA series and even here in lahore the wicket provided a bit early on and allowed reverse swing. If we haf decent spinners they would have enjoyed conditions.

pakistani conditions have never been like rest of asia so no point trying to recreate that. Our pacers are better than spinners and more likely to win us games.

 

[moghul]

Pakistan was playing a 3 test match series after a very very long time so it was refreshing to shift from T20s onto test cricket and that too for a 3 match series rather than a 2 match formality series. The best aspect about this series is that this series actually happened after what happened last Oct/Nov through NZ and England pull outs. At least we can now expect teams to start touring Pakistan and not pull out of tours.

Coming onto cricket this has been on of the most negative series we have seen of late. Recently most of the test matches yield result and draws became an anomaly or draws happened when most of the days were rained out. However for this series to yield draw after draw after particularly boring cricket being played was test of nerves for the fans and especially those people who were at the ground. As usual I would try to identify the takeaways for Pakistan cricket from this series below.

THE GOOD

The Core
Undoubtedly the core of this test team are following players.
- Babar Azam
- Rizwan
- Shaheen Shah
All of them had a decent series and the signs are very good to build the team around these core players. It goes without saying that you can only build a strong team if the core holding them is strong and this is a strong core for Pakistan cricket.

Supporting players to the core / Find for Pakistan
During the series we have seen some very decent performances from Abdullah Shafique and Naseem Shah.
On Shafique, he is going to be part of this team for a long time. I particularly like his balance on the crease and from what I have seen so far he has got all the shots in the book so he has a gameplan for wickets around the world. I expect him to do well on overseas tour as well for a simple fact that he is not a limited player. Another major plus point is that he is not mentally weak like most Pakistan young players are. His temperament is very good and it would only get better going forward.
Naseem Shah had a very good series, in fact he outbowled Shaheen Shah especially in the 3rd test. His pace was up and his action was more like what he had in his early days. During Waqar tenure Naseem got less side on and hence lost his rhythm however he is back to his side on bowling action after Waqar has gone which has yielded increase pace and better seam position. I would like Naseem to play county season but at same time I don't want him to miss out on test cricket as there is not many bowlers better than him that can replace him. PCB has to be careful in managing his workload though.


THE BAD

Spin twins
It was very depressing to see Sajid and Nauman being absolutely toothless in all 3 tests. Whilst they didn't get to ball on day 5 wickets I'm quite confident they wouldn't have made difference either. I'm not overly critical of both of them given the wickets were horrible and only took turn on Day 5 when they both didn't get the chance to bowl. I'm also not supportive of significant changes in the lineup on the back of a series. However, heads would need to roll after such a horrible outing and if we are to drop 1 of the 2 it has to be Nauman. One of the main reason for dropping Nauman is simply because he is way more negative than Sajid. Nauman was first one to come up to Babar and suggest bowling over the wicket into the rough when there was no need to do so. Sajid might not be great but atleast bowls more challenging lines. Also Sajid has an edge over Nauman due to fielding. Having said the above both of them should never play in SENA conditions.

Timid batting or just limited batsmen?
I see a lot of threads on here that our batsmen are timid whilst I'm of the opinion that they are just not good enough. Azhar is the prime example of this. From all the high scores in his career most of them have not resulted in wins for Pakistan meaning his runs do not carry weightage on the results of the game. Given we have now got Imam in our team who is again a limited batsman or should I say timid there is no need for Azhar anymore. At best we can only carry 1 such batsman which going forward would be Imam. PCB has to take a bold step in here and ask Azhar to retire with grace.
On Fawad Alam, I'm not going to write much as writing is on the wall and he should not play anymore matches for Pakistan going forward.

Hasan Ali
Someone on this forum posted that Hasan Ali has already overachieved in his career given his lack of abilities and skill. The last year or so has been horrible for Hasan. For me personally the contributions Hasan has had in important losses of prior year is good enough to keep him away from team. I'm talking about 2 dropped catches one in WI test match and one in semi final of T20 world cup. If Hasan cannot contribute on dusty wickets prone to reverse then he is not good for elsewhere. If we have Faheem Ashraf who bowls similar stuff to Hasan Ali there is unfortunately not place for Hasan anymore.

THE WORST

Pitches
Absolute disgrace has been pitches in the first 2 matches of the series with Lahore one being slightly better at best. PCB needs massive investment in curators and improving pitches as we have an important home season coming up and we cannot afford to lose points due to disgraceful pitches.

Captaincy
The captaincy throughout has been absolute shambles. Even in village cricket people don't revert to negative lines at the start of match like Babar did in Day 1 of the match. There was no thought process or plans on display at all. Cummins was head and shoulders above anything Babar could have mustered in the captaincy during the series. Babar needs significant schooling on captaincy if we are to stick with him as captain across formats.

TEST TEAM GOING FORWARD
I have proposed the following recommendation in our test lineups for home and SENA conditions.

[table="width: 500, class: grid"]
[tr]
[td][/td]
[td]HOME[/td]
[td]SENA[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]1[/td]
[td]Abdullah Shafique[/td]
[td]Abdullah Shafique[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2[/td]
[td]Imam ul Haq[/td]
[td]Imam ul Haq[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]3[/td]
[td]Shan Masood[/td]
[td]Shan Masood[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]4[/td]
[td]Babar Azam (c)[/td]
[td]Babar Azam (c)[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]5[/td]
[td]Kamran Ghulam[/td]
[td]Kamran Ghulam[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]6[/td]
[td]Rizwan (wk)[/td]
[td]Rizwan (wk)[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]7[/td]
[td]Shadab Khan[/td]
[td]Shadab Khan[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]8[/td]
[td]Nawaz[/td]
[td]Faheem Ashraf[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]9[/td]
[td]Sajid Khan[/td]
[td]Dahani[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]10[/td]
[td]Shaheen Shah[/td]
[td]Shaheen Shah[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]11[/td]
[td]Naseem Shah[/td]
[td]Naseem Shah[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

Kamran Ghulam is an absolute must going forward in our team given how well he has been playing for over a year now. I'm also inclined to bring Shan Masood in place of Azhar Ali given Shan has been finding form as well. There is a lot of talk about Saud Shakeel being around but Saud missing out on FC cricket does not help his case. Shadab Khan is a must going forward as our SENA spinner and home leg spinner. He is a much improved bowler and can add the useful contributions in our test team.

Its time to ditch deadweight and bring in match winners as there are potentially too many points to win in the remainder of this year.

Long post but I'm not impressed , many players are easy to select but where needs some thinking , I don;t agree with teams here.

I think Sajid was the biggest failure and should not come even close to playing international cricket. An off spinners is useless without the variety in his bowling like arm ball, top spin, straight one and Sajid has none.

Need at least three seamers even at home.

Faheem has been a failure, he failed , always , as bowler, even in SENA in bowling friendly wickets and he failed as a batsman in flat road of Karachi test . He is a useless low level bits and pieces player , not of international class.

 

[PakEngFan]

Long post but I'm not impressed , many players are easy to select but where needs some thinking , I don;t agree with teams here.

I think Sajid was the biggest failure and should not come even close to playing international cricket. An off spinners is useless without the variety in his bowling like arm ball, top spin, straight one and Sajid has none.

Need at least three seamers even at home.

Faheem has been a failure, he failed , always , as bowler, even in SENA in bowling friendly wickets and he failed as a batsman in flat road of Karachi test . He is a useless low level bits and pieces player , not of international class.

As usual you will do a hit and run. If Faheem is bits and pieces what on earth is waseem who you want to replace Faheem with and that too at 7 lol.

 

[moghul]

As usual you will do a hit and run. If Faheem is bits and pieces what on earth is waseem who you want to replace Faheem with and that too at 7 lol.

It does not have to be Waseem Jr, anyone but this useless Faheem on which we wasted 5-6 years with no gain. I'm sure if Waseem is given a long run like this guy had, he will be a far better cricketer.

 

[Kianig89]

Takeaway is simple you can't field a player just for the sake of it too many duds need to be axed like Fawad Hasan Sajid n Nouman just filled the spots how can you win with only 7 players need to find the right balance take into account the utility of every player not only we should have the capacity of taking 20 with but ability to bat purposefully also in Test cricket you can't go with 3 4 rookies.
Possible Xi
1.Imam 2Shafiq 3Shan 4Babar 5youngster6Rizwan 7Faheem 8Nawaz 9Shadab10Shaheen11Naseem
Here till no.9 team can bat and five bowlers with all bases covered

 

[MenInG]

 

[Energy]

Wow. Looks like Nauman is a godfather in PCBs eyes.

 

[shamaan]

Long post but I'm not impressed , many players are easy to select but where needs some thinking , I don;t agree with teams here.

I think Sajid was the biggest failure and should not come even close to playing international cricket. An off spinners is useless without the variety in his bowling like arm ball, top spin, straight one and Sajid has none.

Need at least three seamers even at home.

Faheem has been a failure, he failed , always , as bowler, even in SENA in bowling friendly wickets and he failed as a batsman in flat road of Karachi test . He is a useless low level bits and pieces player , not of international class.

You stil haven't said who should replace fahim.

 

[shamaan]

Pakistan was playing a 3 test match series after a very very long time so it was refreshing to shift from T20s onto test cricket and that too for a 3 match series rather than a 2 match formality series. The best aspect about this series is that this series actually happened after what happened last Oct/Nov through NZ and England pull outs. At least we can now expect teams to start touring Pakistan and not pull out of tours.

Coming onto cricket this has been on of the most negative series we have seen of late. Recently most of the test matches yield result and draws became an anomaly or draws happened when most of the days were rained out. However for this series to yield draw after draw after particularly boring cricket being played was test of nerves for the fans and especially those people who were at the ground. As usual I would try to identify the takeaways for Pakistan cricket from this series below.

THE GOOD

The Core
Undoubtedly the core of this test team are following players.
- Babar Azam
- Rizwan
- Shaheen Shah
All of them had a decent series and the signs are very good to build the team around these core players. It goes without saying that you can only build a strong team if the core holding them is strong and this is a strong core for Pakistan cricket.

Supporting players to the core / Find for Pakistan
During the series we have seen some very decent performances from Abdullah Shafique and Naseem Shah.
On Shafique, he is going to be part of this team for a long time. I particularly like his balance on the crease and from what I have seen so far he has got all the shots in the book so he has a gameplan for wickets around the world. I expect him to do well on overseas tour as well for a simple fact that he is not a limited player. Another major plus point is that he is not mentally weak like most Pakistan young players are. His temperament is very good and it would only get better going forward.
Naseem Shah had a very good series, in fact he outbowled Shaheen Shah especially in the 3rd test. His pace was up and his action was more like what he had in his early days. During Waqar tenure Naseem got less side on and hence lost his rhythm however he is back to his side on bowling action after Waqar has gone which has yielded increase pace and better seam position. I would like Naseem to play county season but at same time I don't want him to miss out on test cricket as there is not many bowlers better than him that can replace him. PCB has to be careful in managing his workload though.


THE BAD

Spin twins
It was very depressing to see Sajid and Nauman being absolutely toothless in all 3 tests. Whilst they didn't get to ball on day 5 wickets I'm quite confident they wouldn't have made difference either. I'm not overly critical of both of them given the wickets were horrible and only took turn on Day 5 when they both didn't get the chance to bowl. I'm also not supportive of significant changes in the lineup on the back of a series. However, heads would need to roll after such a horrible outing and if we are to drop 1 of the 2 it has to be Nauman. One of the main reason for dropping Nauman is simply because he is way more negative than Sajid. Nauman was first one to come up to Babar and suggest bowling over the wicket into the rough when there was no need to do so. Sajid might not be great but atleast bowls more challenging lines. Also Sajid has an edge over Nauman due to fielding. Having said the above both of them should never play in SENA conditions.

Timid batting or just limited batsmen?
I see a lot of threads on here that our batsmen are timid whilst I'm of the opinion that they are just not good enough. Azhar is the prime example of this. From all the high scores in his career most of them have not resulted in wins for Pakistan meaning his runs do not carry weightage on the results of the game. Given we have now got Imam in our team who is again a limited batsman or should I say timid there is no need for Azhar anymore. At best we can only carry 1 such batsman which going forward would be Imam. PCB has to take a bold step in here and ask Azhar to retire with grace.
On Fawad Alam, I'm not going to write much as writing is on the wall and he should not play anymore matches for Pakistan going forward.

Hasan Ali
Someone on this forum posted that Hasan Ali has already overachieved in his career given his lack of abilities and skill. The last year or so has been horrible for Hasan. For me personally the contributions Hasan has had in important losses of prior year is good enough to keep him away from team. I'm talking about 2 dropped catches one in WI test match and one in semi final of T20 world cup. If Hasan cannot contribute on dusty wickets prone to reverse then he is not good for elsewhere. If we have Faheem Ashraf who bowls similar stuff to Hasan Ali there is unfortunately not place for Hasan anymore.

THE WORST

Pitches
Absolute disgrace has been pitches in the first 2 matches of the series with Lahore one being slightly better at best. PCB needs massive investment in curators and improving pitches as we have an important home season coming up and we cannot afford to lose points due to disgraceful pitches.

Captaincy
The captaincy throughout has been absolute shambles. Even in village cricket people don't revert to negative lines at the start of match like Babar did in Day 1 of the match. There was no thought process or plans on display at all. Cummins was head and shoulders above anything Babar could have mustered in the captaincy during the series. Babar needs significant schooling on captaincy if we are to stick with him as captain across formats.

TEST TEAM GOING FORWARD
I have proposed the following recommendation in our test lineups for home and SENA conditions.

[table="width: 500, class: grid"]
[tr]
[td][/td]
[td]HOME[/td]
[td]SENA[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]1[/td]
[td]Abdullah Shafique[/td]
[td]Abdullah Shafique[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2[/td]
[td]Imam ul Haq[/td]
[td]Imam ul Haq[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]3[/td]
[td]Shan Masood[/td]
[td]Shan Masood[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]4[/td]
[td]Babar Azam (c)[/td]
[td]Babar Azam (c)[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]5[/td]
[td]Kamran Ghulam[/td]
[td]Kamran Ghulam[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]6[/td]
[td]Rizwan (wk)[/td]
[td]Rizwan (wk)[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]7[/td]
[td]Shadab Khan[/td]
[td]Shadab Khan[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]8[/td]
[td]Nawaz[/td]
[td]Faheem Ashraf[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]9[/td]
[td]Sajid Khan[/td]
[td]Dahani[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]10[/td]
[td]Shaheen Shah[/td]
[td]Shaheen Shah[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]11[/td]
[td]Naseem Shah[/td]
[td]Naseem Shah[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

Kamran Ghulam is an absolute must going forward in our team given how well he has been playing for over a year now. I'm also inclined to bring Shan Masood in place of Azhar Ali given Shan has been finding form as well. There is a lot of talk about Saud Shakeel being around but Saud missing out on FC cricket does not help his case. Shadab Khan is a must going forward as our SENA spinner and home leg spinner. He is a much improved bowler and can add the useful contributions in our test team.

Its time to ditch deadweight and bring in match winners as there are potentially too many points to win in the remainder of this year.

In home conditions we should still go with 3 pacers 1 spinner and 1 all rounder which would be Shadab as the batting all rounder.I will also include Saud who can bat at 3 and bowl some overs.


In SENA once again il play Saud instead of Shan Masood other than that I would play the team you stated.

 

[ask_analyse_act]

Shan Masood at no.3 would be a great move if it happens.

ok with kamran ghulam at no.5 also..

both home and away they should go with three seamers otherwise they wont be able to take 20 wickets, i would take Sameen Gul as new ball bowler in both home and away series. Naseem as third seamer..


Nauman and Sajid both should be gone...Im surprised to see Sajid thr who performed the worst out of the 2 spinners

 

[ask_analyse_act]

coaching staff should also change... if they cant find anyone , then bring back MA..

 

[Markhor]

Some quality stuff there [MENTION=145403]Extra_Cover[/MENTION]. Not saying I necessarily agree with all the recommendations but that's a deeper analysis than what PCB will do.

Touching on the batting - our collective RPO of 2.7 was our lowest across a Test series in Pakistan since 2000. Azhar's excuse of slow pitches and straight fields are nonsense - Australia managed 3.17 on the same surfaces. Plus aren't we meant to be the home team with years of experience on these slow wickets ?!

 

[Kianig89]

Fawad is a waste of space has no business playing Test cricket specifically against top nations
Azhar is finished, Azhar has got a successor Abdullah Shafiq, Rizwan is clueless against top notch pace bowling emergency should be declared in domestic cricket to unearth quality spinners or hire Ajmal in PCB academy to train teenagers for some mystery

 

[moghul]

You stil haven't said who should replace fahim.

If we don't have any Stokes or Green we don't to play a pseudo all rounder , play a regular fast bowler in place of Faheem and two spinners who are useful batsmen , Nawaz and Shadab . Both of them are better wicket taking bowler than Nauman and Sajid. Don;t think Waseem will do anything worst than Faheem if he plays .

 

[moghul]

Fawad is a waste of space has no business playing Test cricket specifically against top nations
Azhar is finished, Azhar has got a successor Abdullah Shafiq, Rizwan is clueless against top notch pace bowling emergency should be declared in domestic cricket to unearth quality spinners or hire Ajmal in PCB academy to train teenagers for some mystery

Yeah, lets get Ajmal to teach youngster the art of chucking .

 

[Kianig89]

Every mystery spinner is not a chucker

 

[PakEngFan]

It does not have to be Waseem Jr, anyone but this useless Faheem on which we wasted 5-6 years with no gain. I'm sure if Waseem is given a long run like this guy had, he will be a far better cricketer.

Waseem is a poor cricketer. He will do well if he can even average 15 with the bat. As much as you hate Faheem( not his supporter btw) is miles better then waseem for tests at least. I can see waseem going over 4 rpo in tests.

 

[moghul]

Every mystery spinner is not a chucker

Yes, not everyone , but Ajmal is a chucker,

 

[Zaz]

The only takeaway is that Aus actually came after 24 yrs and we were such good hosts that we didnt even care we lost a home series to them convincingly

 

[ssuhaide]

A big takeaway is that the test leg of the tour was completed without any hitch. This should open the door for New Zealand and England to tour.

I think the big daddy knock from Babar Azam in the 2nd test was huge for him considering he hadn't scored a century in ages. I hope that's the boost he needs to push on and get that average over 50.

Another takeaway is that we are still waiting for that generational fast bowler to arrive.. its not Shaheen. Don't get me wrong he is our best bowler but he needs not to be overbowled and play all three formats all the time. And Shaheen needs to bowl better with the older ball.

 

[sindhiboy]

If the pitches remain like this, i expect joe root to make 300 when england tours

 

[ssuhaide]

If the pitches remain like this, i expect joe root to make 300 when england tours

Lol he won't because all his colleagues would have given away their wickets

 

[sindhiboy]

if the pitches remain graveyards, is it a good idea to give fakhar another chance in the test team?

 

[Super Santi]

Excellent OP.

Pakistan
Abdullah Shafique looks an incredible prospect, got stuck at times but should be a very good opener for the next 10 years at least in home conditions.

Babar was excellent in this series, surely top 2-3 in the world at the moment (not sure i can say anyone is clearly number 1 - was thinking Root).

Azhar Ali - A lot of criticism but thought he was ok in this series, given his age, might be time to move on.

Spinners - Pakistan need to look for new spinners, were ineffective.

Fawad - Really poor here, lucky if he keeps his place.

Shaheen - Expected more from him. Think tests maybe his weakest format atm. At times looks incredible but also pedestrian at times.

Naseem Shah - 1st time i have properly seen him since the England series a few years ago. Has improved so much. Real handful and a long term prospect.

Hasan Ali - just looked off-colour throughout, maybe needs a break away from the national team.


Australia


How was Marcus Harris starting ahead of Khawaja for so long?
Warner coming towards the end of his test career, think he will get exposed abroad.

Marnus - luck starting to run out.

Smith - A bit like Kohli (but better), looking ok and getting scores but power starting to wane.

Green - Still looks a great prospect.

Cummins - incredible bowler.

Starc - Better than expected, i thought they should have had Hazelwood starting both tests but he merited his place and thought his spell in the Pakistan 1st innings of the final test was vital to turning the match around.

Lyon - In the end did his job but think Australia have to start to look to replace him soon, not that effective.

Swepson - Saw a lot of Australians say he was very unlucky but still very raw and bowls too many half trackers.

 

[Gilly]

Excellent OP.

Pakistan
Abdullah Shafique looks an incredible prospect, got stuck at times but should be a very good opener for the next 10 years at least in home conditions.

Babar was excellent in this series, surely top 2-3 in the world at the moment (not sure i can say anyone is clearly number 1 - was thinking Root).

Azhar Ali - A lot of criticism but thought he was ok in this series, given his age, might be time to move on.

Spinners - Pakistan need to look for new spinners, were ineffective.

Fawad - Really poor here, lucky if he keeps his place.

Shaheen - Expected more from him. Think tests maybe his weakest format atm. At times looks incredible but also pedestrian at times.

Naseem Shah - 1st time i have properly seen him since the England series a few years ago. Has improved so much. Real handful and a long term prospect.

Hasan Ali - just looked off-colour throughout, maybe needs a break away from the national team.


Australia


How was Marcus Harris starting ahead of Khawaja for so long?
Warner coming towards the end of his test career, think he will get exposed abroad.

Marnus - luck starting to run out.

Smith - A bit like Kohli (but better), looking ok and getting scores but power starting to wane.

Green - Still looks a great prospect.

Cummins - incredible bowler.

Starc - Better than expected, i thought they should have had Hazelwood starting both tests but he merited his place and thought his spell in the Pakistan 1st innings of the final test was vital to turning the match around.

Lyon - In the end did his job but think Australia have to start to look to replace him soon, not that effective.

Swepson - Saw a lot of Australians say he was very unlucky but still very raw and bowls too many half trackers.

Most effective and best spin bowler away from home over the last ten years.

 

[Extra_Cover]

A lot of posters on here suggesting that both Nauman and Sajid should be dropped. I'm however never in favour of wholesale changes on the back of one solo series. I still support Sajid over Nauman for one of the main reason which is positive attitude and attacking line. Not long ago Sajid singlehandedly won us a test match in Bangladesh this shows that if there is assistant in wicket Sajid is then a much improved bowler.

The second reason being main reason we do not have any alternate options at the moment. I'm not in favour of returning back to Yasir Shah the guy has had a very long run for very little return. In domestic we do not have any upcoming promising player coming through which is unfortunate.

 

[ads101]

Poor result, but we probably fielded our strongest team. I think a mistake was dropping an allrounder for a bowler, Pakistan are not strong enough batting side, even arguably we should be playing a proper batsman at 7. Until we have a batting line up that is strong enough, what we do in terms of bowling is almost irrelevant.

Babar should move up to 3 and take control of the game. It is time to move on from Azhar and Fawad, but if you must play them, Azhar should be shunted down the order no higher than 4, he can't play up top anymore given his age.

Spinners was disappointing but dunno if anyone is better. Give them a few more series to prove themselves perhaps or try a new talent. I think Yasir Shah is finished, time to move on. Maybe Naseem should play over Hasan if we go with 2 fast bowlers, 2 spinners. Stick with Imam and Abdullah, there's not really much options in the opening department who are young, give them a long run now. Get Kamran and/or Saud in to the middle order. Change the captain to Rizwan.

 

[Amjid Javed]

Poor result, but we probably fielded our strongest team. I think a mistake was dropping an allrounder for a bowler, Pakistan are not strong enough batting side, even arguably we should be playing a proper batsman at 7. Until we have a batting line up that is strong enough, what we do in terms of bowling is almost irrelevant.

Babar should move up to 3 and take control of the game. It is time to move on from Azhar and Fawad, but if you must play them, Azhar should be shunted down the order no higher than 4, he can't play up top anymore given his age.

Spinners was disappointing but dunno if anyone is better. Give them a few more series to prove themselves perhaps or try a new talent. I think Yasir Shah is finished, time to move on. Maybe Naseem should play over Hasan if we go with 2 fast bowlers, 2 spinners. Stick with Imam and Abdullah, there's not really much options in the opening department who are young, give them a long run now. Get Kamran and/or Saud in to the middle order. Change the captain to Rizwan.

If pakistan had selected Saud Shakeel and Kamran ghulam in their top 6 not only would we have strengthen the batting but also there would have been no need for a 2nd spinner.

Abdullah
Imam (reluctant pick)
Saud - can bowl left arm spin
Babar - bowls off spin
Kamran ghulam - can bowl left arm spin
Rizwan
Another batsmen or Shadab / Nawaz
naseem shah
shaheen
3rd seamer
front line spinner

there is no need for a 2nd front line spinner when 4 out off your top 7 can fill in and bowl spin. Then you can also play 3 seamers. but selectors nor captain use their brains.

 

[RexRex]

The only takeway from this series is that Pakistan has and always will be Australia's bunny.

I've lost count of the number of high profile games that Pak have choked from winning positions and lost to the kangaroos in the last 3 decades - the two Ws getting smashed at Hobart test by Gilly, 99 WC final, Symonds bail out in 2003 WC, Ajmal vs Hussey in WT20, Wade blasting 3 sixes out of nowhere WT20 semis ... the list is so loooooooonggg.......

 

[Sarwar89]

The only takeway from this series is that Pakistan has and always will be Australia's bunny.

I've lost count of the number of high profile games that Pak have choked from winning positions and lost to the kangaroos in the last 3 decades - the two Ws getting smashed at Hobart test by Gilly, 99 WC final, Symonds bail out in 2003 WC, Ajmal vs Hussey in WT20, Wade blasting 3 sixes out of nowhere WT20 semis ... the list is so loooooooonggg.......

England used to be bunny of Aussies but aggression is one area, if you apply, Aussies do crumble and historically that has been the case.

Douglas Jardine’s bodline aggressive tactics
Sir Garfield Sobers 254 at MCG in 72
Ranatunga, De Silva counter attack 1996 wc final
Laxman’s blitz in 01
Sachin’s desert storm
Moin khan’s blitz in group stage match in 99 wc
Lara’s 153*
Michael Vaughan’s fearsome tactics in 2005 Ashes and supreme pace Flintoff,,Harmison, Hoggard and Simon Jones reverse swung the Aussies.
Jason Roy’s blitz in 19 sf
Pant heroics at gabba

To beat Aussies you cant be in defensive. You have to take the game to them, smart aggression and smart sledging will rattle them. Our team is too nice too sweet and our PCB Chairman is PR guy. Always trying to get impressed by western Foreigners.
We cant beat them. We dont have those nasty characters in team.

 

[shamaan]

A lot of posters on here suggesting that both Nauman and Sajid should be dropped. I'm however never in favour of wholesale changes on the back of one solo series. I still support Sajid over Nauman for one of the main reason which is positive attitude and attacking line. Not long ago Sajid singlehandedly won us a test match in Bangladesh this shows that if there is assistant in wicket Sajid is then a much improved bowler.

The second reason being main reason we do not have any alternate options at the moment. I'm not in favour of returning back to Yasir Shah the guy has had a very long run for very little return. In domestic we do not have any upcoming promising player coming through which is unfortunate.

Anyone bowler can bowl on assisting pitches it's when the pitch is flat that's we're you become average to excellent.

 

[giri26]

The biggest takeaway for Pakistan would be to play to their strengths at least at home. You cannot worry about losing and prepare pitches to neutralise opposition bowlers. You should be ready to lose in order to win at least at home. People keep talking about the pitches in SA, India, England, NZ etc but again these teams prepare such pitches knowing very well that it can easily backfire. They win most often than not as they play to their strengths at least at home. Pakistan need to start doing that. If they prepare pitches similar to what they did in this series they are going to lose most often than not against top sides.

 

[Extra_Cover]

Anyone bowler can bowl on assisting pitches it's when the pitch is flat that's we're you become average to excellent.

Not true. You wouldn't say anyone can bowl like Ashwin in India or like Anderson in England. These players have achieved their success by being super consistent on assisting tracks that does not mean anyone can replicate their efforts.

 

[iniqbal223]

In home conditions we should still go with 3 pacers 1 spinner and 1 all rounder which would be Shadab as the batting all rounder.I will also include Saud who can bat at 3 and bowl some overs.


In SENA once again il play Saud instead of Shan Masood other than that I would play the team you stated.

The amount of effort you haVE PUT in to prepare that table
Im pretty sure the ones who are in charge dont even put that much effort

 

[shamaan]

Not true. You wouldn't say anyone can bowl like Ashwin in India or like Anderson in England. These players have achieved their success by being super consistent on assisting tracks that does not mean anyone can replicate their efforts.

Cummings look at his stats at home and away.
Dale Steyn away average is close to his home average.

That's just two examples of bowlers who have performed home and away.