The game plan for first Test against Australia at Perth makes very little sense

[Junaids]

I should be clear in starting this thread: I admire Shan Masood's cricket brain, although I think he is too old to be appointed skipper (at essentially the same age that the likes of Alastair Cook and AB De Villiers retired).

I am more sceptical about Mohammad Hafeez, and have always thought that the nickname "Professor" was intended to be ironic.

Unfortunately the Game Plan for the Perth Test broke down as soon as the coin was tossed.

Pakistan basically packed their batting and went without a spinner and picked 4 medium pacers, 3 of whom were short right-armers.

This might have worked had they batted first and compiled a huge total. But it was never going to work if Australia batted first.

There are certain facts about modern Test cricket in Australia which Pakistan seem determined to ignore, in many cases citing successes for India on their last two tours when the Australian team was in a state of post-sandpaper chaos and there for the taking.

These are the realities of bowling in Australia in Test nowadays:

1. You need at least one bowler who can bowl consistently in the 140's. Shaheen Shah Afridi can, but only if he only bowls a maximum of one 5 over spell per session. But he was so overbowled by Tea on Day 1 that he was bowling around 129K, and is at extreme risk of getting injured.

2. The Kookaburra ball does nothing after 20 overs. No swing, no seam, nothing. In general, from overs 20-80 you will take wickets mainly by slowing down the scoring rate and by inducing risks. And that means you need bowlers of at least 6'2 in height to do so. I like Faheem Ashraf for his batting, but he took 14-0-65-1 yesterday, and Aamer Jamal took 12-0-63-2. Tall medium pacers would have each returned figures along the lines of 14-5-28-1, and an overnight score of 346-5 would be much more likely to be around 280-6.

3. Days 3 and 4 are predicted to have temperatures around 35 degrees. This pitch may well crack up, just as it did at Perth in the 1990s for the West Indies. That may suit a fingerspinner, and Nauman Ali probably would have been economical here. But consider what the tall West Indies quicks did on cracked Perth pitches a kilometer away at the WACA, when the Windies were already in serious decline:

1992-93
Ambrose (6'8) 18-9-25-7
Bishop (6'5) 11-6-17-2
Walsh (6'6) 11.2-2-45-0

Ambrose 21-8-54-2
Bishop 16-4-40-6
Walsh 12-2-46-1

1996-97
Ambrose 18-5-43-5
Bishop 18-5-54-3
Walsh 9-0-29-0

Ambrose 9-2-50-2
Bishop 12.3-1-44-2
Walsh 20-4-74-5

In short, Pakistan has made the defensive move to go in with an extra batsman and a 4 man attack instead of a 5 man attack. But by picking 3 short, expensive right-arm medium pacers they have removed any danger from Shaheen Shah Afridi, who is reduced to bowling long spells at reduced pace.

It's a terrible game plan.

 

[ahmadharis1]

Yeah the bowling combination makes no sense. You can pick Faheem or Jamal but you can't pick both... I would've replaced Jamal with a spinner, and maybe Hamza in place of Shehzad though he has bowled decently well on debut. To me, there's almost no pitch in the world where you don't select a specialist spinner

 

[shamaan]

They should have picked one of jamal or fahim.

 

[Buffet]

LOL, as if being tall means bowlers will start bowling like Ambrose, Bishop and Walsh.

Pakistan team is not doing anything to copy Indian success there. They simply can't. There is a huge gap in skill set. Indian bowling unit has been on different planet in the last 6-7 years in all kinds of surfaces.

Having said that I won't play any debutant in Aus. It's not a place to debut. Pakistan has been getting thrashed in Aus for a long time now. Pakistani bowlers simply don't know how to bowl there. I see bowlers trying for magic deliveries rather than keeping it tight and being relentless near off stump. That's what Aus does to visiting sides. That's what Indians did to Aus twice. Now to do that team needs to have test class bowlers. Pakistan has two newbies and lead bowler spraying it all over searching for magic delivery and no spinner.

 

[Junaids]

LOL, as if being tall means bowlers will start bowling like Ambrose, Bishop and Walsh.

Pakistan team is not doing anything to copy Indian success there. They simply can't. There is a huge gap in skill set. Indian bowling unit has been on different planet in the last 6-7 years in all kinds of surfaces.

Having said that I won't play any debutant in Aus. It's not a place to debut. Pakistan has been getting thrashed in Aus for a long time now. Pakistani bowlers simply don't know how to bowl there. I see bowlers trying for magic deliveries rather than keeping it tight and being relentless near off stump. That's what Aus does to visiting sides. That's what Indians did to Aus twice. Now to do that team needs to have test class bowlers. Pakistan has two newbies and lead bowler spraying it all over searching for magic delivery and no spinner.

I largely agree with you.

But that is my whole point about height.

It's all to do with the geometry of batsmen knowing when to play forward or back.

A 6'6 bowler can land the ball on an area the size of an iPad while still catching the batsman between forward or back.

A 6'0 bowler - the range from Imran to Waqar to Haris Rauf - only has the area of an iPhone which will cause equal difficulty.

A 5'8 bowler only has an area the size of a coin that he can hit and cause equal difficulty.

Excellent short bowlers are rare. Shami and Bumrah aren't really in the top drawer, but they were good enough against a demoralised and understrength Australia.

But you only need to look at yesterday's scorecard to see how this works. Shaheen Shah Afridi was 1/4 of the pace attack, but bowled 50% of the maiden overs.

My whole point is that a moderately skilled tall fast bowler like Angus Fraser or Kyle Abbott will always do better in places like Australia than a more skilled short-skiddy bowler.

Waqar Younis was never at his best in Australia - he was never fully fit here at his peak. He took 14 wickets in 7 Tests at an average of 40.50.

In contrast, Angus Fraser was a massively less skilled bowler, but he is 6 inches taller. And in Australia in the same era he took 29 wickets in 8 Tests at 32.03.

And that basically sums the situation up. You can be a short ATG like Waqar Younis, but in Australia and most of SENA you are going to achieve less than an inferior player who is much taller.

 

[Buffet]

I largely agree with you.

But that is my whole point about height.

It's all to do with the geometry of batsmen knowing when to play forward or back.

A 6'6 bowler can land the ball on an area the size of an iPad while still catching the batsman between forward or back.

A 6'0 bowler - the range from Imran to Waqar to Haris Rauf - only has the area of an iPhone which will cause equal difficulty.

A 5'8 bowler only has an area the size of a coin that he can hit and cause equal difficulty.

Excellent short bowlers are rare. Shami and Bumrah aren't really in the top drawer, but they were good enough against a demoralised and understrength Australia.

But you only need to look at yesterday's scorecard to see how this works. Shaheen Shah Afridi was 1/4 of the pace attack, but bowled 50% of the maiden overs.

My whole point is that a moderately skilled tall fast bowler like Angus Fraser or Kyle Abbott will always do better in places like Australia than a more skilled short-skiddy bowler.

Waqar Younis was never at his best in Australia - he was never fully fit here at his peak. He took 14 wickets in 7 Tests at an average of 40.50.

In contrast, Angus Fraser was a massively less skilled bowler, but he is 6 inches taller. And in Australia in the same era he took 29 wickets in 8 Tests at 32.03.

And that basically sums the situation up. You can be a short ATG like Waqar Younis, but in Australia and most of SENA you are going to achieve less than an inferior player who is much taller.

Sure, if you have same skill then having height will help. Problem is height without skill will do nothing.

I am not sure how much cricket you have been watching recently, but Indians bowling unit in the last 70-80 tests ( spanning 7-8 years) have averaged 25 per wicket as bowling unit. Not just at home, but it's the same situation away. So their success in Aus was very little to do with Aus not being good. Aus has thrashed other teams in Aus in the same period. You will be hard pressed to find many bowling units in history averaging 25 per wicket. Reason is simple, rarely you can have all bases covered in bowling attack and Indians have all condition bowling attack.

So trying to copy Indians is not an option for Pakistan. Gap is just too big. I don't think Waqar just struggled in Aus. He had issues against good batting sides and also his skills were limited. I could find many tall bowlers who failed big time in Aus as well. So as I said, being tall will certainly help if you have other skills. Problem comes when we get some tall bowlers without skills and think that they will do well. They won't. If two bowlers have same skills then sure I will also pick some one taller. Having extra height will help to generate awkward bounce.

Pakistan's problem is simply lack of pacers who are world class and then spin has just disappeared. Even with limited resources, I would never field two newbies. Nothing against them, they may be good, but no team should have newbies in Aus. Just give them some easier games and then go to Aus with enough time to practice.

It's a combination of poor recourse and poor planning. When you add them together then no surprise that bowling unit is not going to do much in Aus. I don't think poor resource can be fixed very quickly, but planning can be fixed.

Aus batting is not that great that they won't fail. Issues is with bowling well in Aus conditions and making it hard for them to score.

 

[Buffet]

I think even with current set of Pakistani bowlers, if they don't give hit me balls every over then it will become a lot harder for Aus. But it's easier said than done.

 

[ElRaja]

as soon as i saw that bowling line up, i went to bed. i have no idea what they were thinking, if ur top collapses jamal at 9 is not saving you.

i dont mind salman over nauman or sajid, i dont think either of the latter two would have had any effect on this aussie line up.

 

[Statpadder Inc]

I largely agree with you.

But that is my whole point about height.

It's all to do with the geometry of batsmen knowing when to play forward or back.

A 6'6 bowler can land the ball on an area the size of an iPad while still catching the batsman between forward or back.

A 6'0 bowler - the range from Imran to Waqar to Haris Rauf - only has the area of an iPhone which will cause equal difficulty.

A 5'8 bowler only has an area the size of a coin that he can hit and cause equal difficulty.

Excellent short bowlers are rare. Shami and Bumrah aren't really in the top drawer, but they were good enough against a demoralised and understrength Australia.

But you only need to look at yesterday's scorecard to see how this works. Shaheen Shah Afridi was 1/4 of the pace attack, but bowled 50% of the maiden overs.

My whole point is that a moderately skilled tall fast bowler like Angus Fraser or Kyle Abbott will always do better in places like Australia than a more skilled short-skiddy bowler.

Waqar Younis was never at his best in Australia - he was never fully fit here at his peak. He took 14 wickets in 7 Tests at an average of 40.50.

In contrast, Angus Fraser was a massively less skilled bowler, but he is 6 inches taller. And in Australia in the same era he took 29 wickets in 8 Tests at 32.03.

And that basically sums the situation up. You can be a short ATG like Waqar Younis, but in Australia and most of SENA you are going to achieve less than an inferior player who is much taller.

Every team other than India got trashed in Australia, must feel sad when your team hasn't won a match in Australian soil since miandad retired.
Waqar younis had a poor record against the best batting teams of his era and failed in high pressure situations. Seems like a skill and mentality issue.
Bumrah has done more in Australia than any so called Pakistani fast bowling great.

 

[uppercut]

Excellent short bowlers are rare. Shami and Bumrah aren't really in the top drawer, but they were good enough against a demoralised and understrength Australia.

How do you explain 36/all out in the very first test .... somehow the Aussies weren't demoralised for just the one Test?

Next ... How do you explain India missing 9 first choice players which included the entire fast bowling and spin bowling in the decider ?

 

[Buffet]

How do you explain 36/all out in the very first test .... somehow the Aussies weren't demoralised for just the one Test?

Next ... How do you explain India missing 9 first choice players which included the entire fast bowling and spin bowling in the decider ?

In the last 5 years in Aus,

NZ lost 0-3
Eng lost 0-4
SL lost 0-2
Pak lost 0-2
WI lost 0-2
SA lost 0-2

Aus has been gun team at home in the last 5 years.

 

[Buffet]

Coming back to topic. Bowling attack seems poor to me. Batting seems fine at least on paper for Pakistan here. Hope to see some good fight from batting unit.

 

[Nasty Naz]

Pakistan never has any game plan in Australia and it shows every time they tour. All their players are clueless in Australia and the lack of understanding shows. I don't know how many times it needs to be said but for god sake, stop focusing on lengthening the batting. Batting is not the problem, it's the bowling and its utterly ridiculous their game plan is essentially going with 2 rookie bowlers, an out of form & hobbled Afridi and Faheem as your 4th bowling option. Dude is barely usable as a 5th bowling option and this is what you are going with?

They went with rookie bowlers last time in Australia and always tried to length the batting at the expense of bowlers and literally it has never worked. Team barely even managed to get double digit in wickets in the ENTIRE TOUR. How do you not learn from that annihilation? Instead, it's the same old.

Until Pakistan get a game changing, unorthodox and a tactically brilliant captain, the issues Pakistan have will continue to persist.

 

[Abdullah]

I should be clear in starting this thread: I admire Shan Masood's cricket brain, although I think he is too old to be appointed skipper (at essentially the same age that the likes of Alastair Cook and AB De Villiers retired).

I am more sceptical about Mohammad Hafeez, and have always thought that the nickname "Professor" was intended to be ironic.

Unfortunately the Game Plan for the Perth Test broke down as soon as the coin was tossed.

Pakistan basically packed their batting and went without a spinner and picked 4 medium pacers, 3 of whom were short right-armers.

This might have worked had they batted first and compiled a huge total. But it was never going to work if Australia batted first.

There are certain facts about modern Test cricket in Australia which Pakistan seem determined to ignore, in many cases citing successes for India on their last two tours when the Australian team was in a state of post-sandpaper chaos and there for the taking.

These are the realities of bowling in Australia in Test nowadays:

1. You need at least one bowler who can bowl consistently in the 140's. Shaheen Shah Afridi can, but only if he only bowls a maximum of one 5 over spell per session. But he was so overbowled by Tea on Day 1 that he was bowling around 129K, and is at extreme risk of getting injured.

2. The Kookaburra ball does nothing after 20 overs. No swing, no seam, nothing. In general, from overs 20-80 you will take wickets mainly by slowing down the scoring rate and by inducing risks. And that means you need bowlers of at least 6'2 in height to do so. I like Faheem Ashraf for his batting, but he took 14-0-65-1 yesterday, and Aamer Jamal took 12-0-63-2. Tall medium pacers would have each returned figures along the lines of 14-5-28-1, and an overnight score of 346-5 would be much more likely to be around 280-6.

3. Days 3 and 4 are predicted to have temperatures around 35 degrees. This pitch may well crack up, just as it did at Perth in the 1990s for the West Indies. That may suit a fingerspinner, and Nauman Ali probably would have been economical here. But consider what the tall West Indies quicks did on cracked Perth pitches a kilometer away at the WACA, when the Windies were already in serious decline:

1992-93
Ambrose (6'8) 18-9-25-7
Bishop (6'5) 11-6-17-2
Walsh (6'6) 11.2-2-45-0

Ambrose 21-8-54-2
Bishop 16-4-40-6
Walsh 12-2-46-1

1996-97
Ambrose 18-5-43-5
Bishop 18-5-54-3
Walsh 9-0-29-0

Ambrose 9-2-50-2
Bishop 12.3-1-44-2
Walsh 20-4-74-5

In short, Pakistan has made the defensive move to go in with an extra batsman and a 4 man attack instead of a 5 man attack. But by picking 3 short, expensive right-arm medium pacers they have removed any danger from Shaheen Shah Afridi, who is reduced to bowling long spells at reduced pace.

It's a terrible game plan.

The other way to look at it is we have actually done well and the score should be 320-8.
You can't really plan to drop catches and miss stumpings!
Given the selection the bowling/captaincy held up OK!

 

[uppercut]

In the last 5 years in Aus,

NZ lost 0-3
Eng lost 0-4
SL lost 0-2
Pak lost 0-2
WI lost 0-2
SA lost 0-2

Aus has been gun team at home in the last 5 years.

Thanks for the stats .... but when it comes to devating with Junaids ... facts dont have a place therefore both of us stand no chance on this topic.

 

[Kianig89]

I should be clear in starting this thread: I admire Shan Masood's cricket brain, although I think he is too old to be appointed skipper (at essentially the same age that the likes of Alastair Cook and AB De Villiers retired).

I am more sceptical about Mohammad Hafeez, and have always thought that the nickname "Professor" was intended to be ironic.

Unfortunately the Game Plan for the Perth Test broke down as soon as the coin was tossed.

Pakistan basically packed their batting and went without a spinner and picked 4 medium pacers, 3 of whom were short right-armers.

This might have worked had they batted first and compiled a huge total. But it was never going to work if Australia batted first.

There are certain facts about modern Test cricket in Australia which Pakistan seem determined to ignore, in many cases citing successes for India on their last two tours when the Australian team was in a state of post-sandpaper chaos and there for the taking.

These are the realities of bowling in Australia in Test nowadays:

1. You need at least one bowler who can bowl consistently in the 140's. Shaheen Shah Afridi can, but only if he only bowls a maximum of one 5 over spell per session. But he was so overbowled by Tea on Day 1 that he was bowling around 129K, and is at extreme risk of getting injured.

2. The Kookaburra ball does nothing after 20 overs. No swing, no seam, nothing. In general, from overs 20-80 you will take wickets mainly by slowing down the scoring rate and by inducing risks. And that means you need bowlers of at least 6'2 in height to do so. I like Faheem Ashraf for his batting, but he took 14-0-65-1 yesterday, and Aamer Jamal took 12-0-63-2. Tall medium pacers would have each returned figures along the lines of 14-5-28-1, and an overnight score of 346-5 would be much more likely to be around 280-6.

3. Days 3 and 4 are predicted to have temperatures around 35 degrees. This pitch may well crack up, just as it did at Perth in the 1990s for the West Indies. That may suit a fingerspinner, and Nauman Ali probably would have been economical here. But consider what the tall West Indies quicks did on cracked Perth pitches a kilometer away at the WACA, when the Windies were already in serious decline:

1992-93
Ambrose (6'8) 18-9-25-7
Bishop (6'5) 11-6-17-2
Walsh (6'6) 11.2-2-45-0

Ambrose 21-8-54-2
Bishop 16-4-40-6
Walsh 12-2-46-1

1996-97
Ambrose 18-5-43-5
Bishop 18-5-54-3
Walsh 9-0-29-0

Ambrose 9-2-50-2
Bishop 12.3-1-44-2
Walsh 20-4-74-5

In short, Pakistan has made the defensive move to go in with an extra batsman and a 4 man attack instead of a 5 man attack. But by picking 3 short, expensive right-arm medium pacers they have removed any danger from Shaheen Shah Afridi, who is reduced to bowling long spells at reduced pace.

It's a terrible game plan.

its insanity expecting this cannon fodder attack to do what Ambrose et al did

 

[Savak]

Pakistan needs more U19 and A tours in Australian conditions. You can't bring in rookie, inexperienced bowlers to Australia and expect miracles.

 

[cricketjoshila]

I largely agree with you.

But that is my whole point about height.

It's all to do with the geometry of batsmen knowing when to play forward or back.

A 6'6 bowler can land the ball on an area the size of an iPad while still catching the batsman between forward or back.

A 6'0 bowler - the range from Imran to Waqar to Haris Rauf - only has the area of an iPhone which will cause equal difficulty.

A 5'8 bowler only has an area the size of a coin that he can hit and cause equal difficulty.

Excellent short bowlers are rare. Shami and Bumrah aren't really in the top drawer, but they were good enough against a demoralised and understrength Australia.

But you only need to look at yesterday's scorecard to see how this works. Shaheen Shah Afridi was 1/4 of the pace attack, but bowled 50% of the maiden overs.

My whole point is that a moderately skilled tall fast bowler like Angus Fraser or Kyle Abbott will always do better in places like Australia than a more skilled short-skiddy bowler.

Waqar Younis was never at his best in Australia - he was never fully fit here at his peak. He took 14 wickets in 7 Tests at an average of 40.50.

In contrast, Angus Fraser was a massively less skilled bowler, but he is 6 inches taller. And in Australia in the same era he took 29 wickets in 8 Tests at 32.03.

And that basically sums the situation up. You can be a short ATG like Waqar Younis, but in Australia and most of SENA you are going to achieve less than an inferior player who is much taller.

Well what matters is skills and not height.

Bumrah avgs 21.xx in Australia. He isn't tall.

Shami avgs 32.xx in Australia very similar to the Angus Fraser hyped by the OP.

Dale Steyn another not so tall bowler avgs 28 in Australia.

If you have skills you will do well, if you don't have skils you will fail. Height wont save you.

And the OP thinks his constant attempts to downplay skills and achievements of Indian players is some kind of success.

 

[cricketjoshila]

Bowling selection is what it is.

Jamal is able to seam the ball and thats good very similar to Shami but slower. That's why many times Batsmen were able to make late adjustments.

I don't get the point of Salman.

And why Mohammad Wasim jr was not played instead of Shahzad? Wasim has pace and can seam the ball.

Shaheen Afridi was very disappointing. Seems his pace has reduced and it was only for a brief period in his career that he was bowling 145ks.

 

[kron]

Well what matters is skills and not height.

Bumrah avgs 21.xx in Australia. He isn't tall.

Shami avgs 32.xx in Australia very similar to the Angus Fraser hyped by the OP.

Dale Steyn another not so tall bowler avgs 28 in Australia.

If you have skills you will do well, if you don't have skils you will fail. Height wont save you.

And the OP thinks his constant attempts to downplay skills and achievements of Indian players is some kind of success.

wagner too

 

[Rana]

I don’t understand the point of whinging about plans when your Team managed to actually take 10 wickets in a session instead of a whole Test series in Australia for once

 

[Blistering Barnacle]

Shaheen was all over the place at the start and getting smashed, totally relieving the pressure that the debutant Khurram was building up with very tight bowling. And it turns out the best bowler was the other debutant Jamal. So some of the posts and the original post aren't looking that great in retrospect. Aus is a very strong team at home and this is a very strong batting lineup. If a few catches had been taken, the Aussie score could have been a lot lower.

 

[FearlessRoar]

Well, it is commendable that we bowled out the entire Australian team today instead of them declaring the innings. It was also a great achievement.

 

[castortroy]

I was actually shocked pak bowled Australia out. Even thought they have nearly made 500, I didn't expect pak to bowl them out in any of the test matches.

I expect the pak like up to collapse tomorrow but it was nice to see another set of ideas in the field rather than the timid babar approach

 

[emranabbas]

some most recent outing in Australia

Australia 589/3d
pakistan 302 & 239


Pakistan 240 & 335
Australia 580

Pakistan has done really well in restricting Australia to 490 and putting 130 with only loss of 2 wickets

 

[Rana]

some most recent outing in Australia

Australia 589/3d
pakistan 302 & 239


Pakistan 240 & 335
Australia 580

Pakistan has done really well in restricting Australia to 490 and putting 130 with only loss of 2 wickets

Plus I think they have the confidence now to know where to bowl against them. They need to replace the old garbage Faheem and Shaheen and bring in Usama Mir and Noman Ali in the next Test

 

[Statpadder Inc]

Club level bowling beat Australia C, not in the realms of a miracle on the pitch is it. The miniature chest pumping I’d have thought would be limited after you were humiliated by Australia recently. Now you want to give lessons on winning in Australia! amusing!

Your success down under has always been attributed to facing weaker teams.

And your success will never be possible in Australia. Don't have the talent, skills or the mentality. You should stick to beefing with the likes of Zimbabwe and Afghanistan.

how much it kills you inside that your biggest rivals won 2 test series in Australia, something you will never to see Pakistan do

 

[Buffet]

Well what matters is skills and not height.

With similar skills, height will be an advantage for sure. Problem comes when height over skills, that's not going to work anywhere even in Aus.

 

[emranabbas]

Plus I think they have the confidence now to know where to bowl against them. They need to replace the old garbage Faheem and Shaheen and bring in Usama Mir and Noman Ali in the next Test

100 percent enough of superstars playing on reputation rather than merit

 

[Buffet]

some most recent outing in Australia

Australia 589/3d
pakistan 302 & 239


Pakistan 240 & 335
Australia 580

Pakistan has done really well in restricting Australia to 490 and putting 130 with only loss of 2 wickets

+1

Just need to bat well here entire 3rd day and tire Aus attack. If catches were taken then Aus would have scored even less.

 

[Rana]

Plus I think they have the confidence now to know where to bowl against them. They need to replace the old garbage Faheem and Shaheen and bring in Usama Mir and Noman Ali in the next Test

Sorry I meant Mir Hamza

 

[zaidihusain]

Although it's little early to comment but I believe Faheem can be replaced by Wasim Jnr. and possibly Shaheen can be replaced by Hamza as both of them are the weakest link. I saw Mitchell Marsh bowling medium fast and he was looking more threatening than Shaheen & Faheem

 

[160KPH]

Irony , Pakistan fan were bringing india when they were downplays india performance in Australia.

What do you use the KP emoji in every post? Is it because of all of the famous beatings he gave your team?

Also I don’t downplay India’s series wins in Australia. Some very impressive wins.

 

[shaz619]

bro, they won.

thats what matters, what tactics were employed, whether someone was running naked on field does not matter.

We are also facing a D team of aging Aussies, yet we allowed David Warner to smash 100+ against us. The same Warner that was about to be thrown out of the team few months ago due to loss of form.

They won, we lost in the past an we will again lose. You cant take credit away from India especially after wee made fun of their trudlers and boosted our pacers.

India's icc failiure is a seperate topic, but you cannot take credit away from their Australia test series win.

I have taken the credit away bro, we can’t go back to the past can we?

I can’t magically ensure the Australians were in prime form; peak conditioning, peak mentality and peak height.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

Faheem Ashraf was a weird choice for a test match, but other than that can hardly complain after two days of test cricket. Pakistan is not going to win the game with this bowling line up, but they weren't winning it with established bowlers either. Most of them have been bowling rubbish in big games for a while now, if you want to live in denial up to you, but just look at the world cup.

 

[shaz619]

Faheem Ashraf was a weird choice for a test match, but other than that can hardly complain after two days of test cricket. Pakistan is not going to win the game with this bowling line up, but they weren't winning it with established bowlers either. Most of them have been bowling rubbish in big games for a while now, if you want to live in denial up to you, but just look at the world cup.

Masood said every point counts prior to the match, I think his intention has been to try and draw and not win from the start

 

[FearlessRoar]

I see no game plan here. As Abdullah Shafique was saying, we were already aware of a good total from Australia in the first innings. It means there was no bowling plan.

 

[FearlessRoar]

And all the time, our players keep saying, 'We will try, we will try, we will try.' I mean, what is going on? Why don't they say, 'We will do it' or 'We did it'?"

 

[Savak]

Wasim Jr definitely needs to come in for Faheem Ashraf. We can't have Ashraf throwing pies and conceding 5 runs per over, his batting is not good enough to warrant selection.

 

[MenInG]

Stick to the topic

A few serial trollers doing their normal stuff.

Watch your posting style or you will be put on restricted.

 

[Kianig89]

In optimism one can say, that Pakistan went with that defensive plan of trying to restrict Australia and then in a hope batting will do the donkey work though Aus have managed a sizeable Total but still not runaway with 600 type score. All Pakistan need is now just bat bat and bat as long as they can. It will be a marathon but this is what actual cricket is grind the opposition

 

[Buffet]

In optimism one can say, that Pakistan went with that defensive plan of trying to restrict Australia and then in a hope batting will do the donkey work though Aus have managed a sizeable Total but still not runaway with 600 type score. All Pakistan need is now just bat bat and bat as long as they can. It will be a marathon but this is what actual cricket is grind the opposition

So far Pakistan has not done too bad. Just need to bat long here and tire Aus pacers. Win or lose, tired Aus pacers will become less effective in series.

 

[shariqnoor]

I don't know why people cannot accept that Pakistan's bowling stocks are at an all-time low.

There is literally no one in whole of Pakistan who would be able to do better than the current lot in Australia.

You can try and post pages and pages on what needs to be done to succeed in Australia but there is simply no one there to execute any of the skills necessary to win.

It's easy for me to say that Pakistan blundered by not picking players who could play the cut-and-pull shots because they are the players who succeed in Australia. Case in point, Ijaz Ahmed. However, there are a grand total of 0 players in the Pakistan cricketing circle who could play the cut and pull well when the bowling is consistently 140+.

Pakistan needs to improve its quality of cricketers first before anybody should start targeting the selection of players. The pool is ridiculously small.

 

[Bewal Express]

Pakistan needs more U19 and A tours in Australian conditions. You can't bring in rookie, inexperienced bowlers to Australia and expect miracles.

Still won't make any tamgible difference. You need regular cricket on good wickets with bounce. Taking an U19 tour or an A tour will not make our players consistently better on bouncier tracks.

 

[GLORY OF '92]

Sure, if you have same skill then having height will help. Problem is height without skill will do nothing.

I am not sure how much cricket you have been watching recently, but Indians bowling unit in the last 70-80 tests ( spanning 7-8 years) have averaged 25 per wicket as bowling unit. Not just at home, but it's the same situation away. So their success in Aus was very little to do with Aus not being good. Aus has thrashed other teams in Aus in the same period. You will be hard pressed to find many bowling units in history averaging 25 per wicket. Reason is simple, rarely you can have all bases covered in bowling attack and Indians have all condition bowling attack.

So trying to copy Indians is not an option for Pakistan. Gap is just too big. I don't think Waqar just struggled in Aus. He had issues against good batting sides and also his skills were limited. I could find many tall bowlers who failed big time in Aus as well. So as I said, being tall will certainly help if you have other skills. Problem comes when we get some tall bowlers without skills and think that they will do well. They won't. If two bowlers have same skills then sure I will also pick some one taller. Having extra height will help to generate awkward bounce.

Pakistan's problem is simply lack of pacers who are world class and then spin has just disappeared. Even with limited resources, I would never field two newbies. Nothing against them, they may be good, but no team should have newbies in Aus. Just give them some easier games and then go to Aus with enough time to practice.

It's a combination of poor recourse and poor planning. When you add them together then no surprise that bowling unit is not going to do much in Aus. I don't think poor resource can be fixed very quickly, but planning can be fixed.

Aus batting is not that great that they won't fail. Issues is with bowling well in Aus conditions and making it hard for them to score.

All that said still no WTC for India or a series win in SA. Pakistan 1980s still the best Asian Test side overall.

 

[Buffet]

Pakistan 1980s still the best Asian Test side overall.

Glad you think so. Good for you.

 

[The Bald Eagle]

Grand Aussies preparation for team Pakistan

Perhaps the Aussies had read that pre-prepared script too. Maybe they had also skipped ahead to the second act, which was supposed to see their reunited Big Four bowling attack blow Pakistan's top order away on a bouncy wicket.

Once again though, Pakistan decided not to play ball. Before their arrival there was an acceptance Pakistan would be a batting team, with its comparatively experienced and battle-hardened top order existing in direct contrast to the raw, untapped enthusiasm of the bowling attack.

These are proper Test cricketers. Abdullah Shafique. Imam ul-Haq. Shan Masood and the brilliant Babar Azam behind them. Newcomer Saud Shakeel has been a revelation in his first seven Tests.

Their challenge would be adjusting to the Australian conditions, and on the evidence of 53 overs on day two, it is one they are up for.

Cricket purists will have been salivating with the quality of Shafique and Imam's leaving. Their defence was compact and deliberate, their focus unbroken.

Source : ABC News

 

[Savak]

India's batting template was that Pujara would do the Tuk tuk role but everyone else would play their natural games. Eventually Pujara wore the aussie pace attack down and everyone else cashed in. However you can't have all 6-7 players playing the Pujara role.

 

[Abdullah]

In optimism one can say, that Pakistan went with that defensive plan of trying to restrict Australia and then in a hope batting will do the donkey work though Aus have managed a sizeable Total but still not runaway with 600 type score. All Pakistan need is now just bat bat and bat as long as they can. It will be a marathon but this is what actual cricket is grind the opposition

Totally.
People need to stop dreaming about trying to win.
A draw in the first game would be amazing.
Just need to take time out of the game. Need to make today a tough a day as possible for Australia, for our lower order to cash in tomorrow.
We must be still batting in out first innings at closing of play today

 

[uppercut]

India's batting template was that Pujara would do the Tuk tuk role but everyone else would play their natural games. Eventually Pujara wore the aussie pace attack down and everyone else cashed in. However you can't have all 6-7 players playing the Pujara role.

To be fair .. Aussies might actually regret getting him out at the most in-appropriate time in that Gaba test. Had he lasted for just 2 or 3 overs more then there would not have been enough time to go for a win. I was actually very happy that he got out at the most correct time and let the younger more flamboyant players like Sundar, Pant, etc bring it home!!! What a day that was!

PS: No disrespect to Pujara though. His innings was very much necessary. but given the time constraints it was necessary for him to make way for the stroke makers.

 

[lazy cricketer]

the mentality of Pak camp is clear when Abdullah said we will try to go as close as possible to the target. that's a sign of a team that would be satisfied by drawing the match...Babar has the same mentality remember when he said "Maybe we might have been able to chase down 400" and then fakhar said bilkul chase kar jaty vs nz in the wc.

 

[emranabbas]

Whose the lead bowler? Shaheen or Khuram?

 

[Cricket Warrior]

Whose the lead bowler? Shaheen or Khuram?

for now Aamer Jamal is leading them