This Team of 50-Year-Olds and Has-Beens Would Do Better Than the Current Cowards

[Anis Shivani]

So where are those who said that the current philosophy was a winning formula? To accept that it’s Babar and Rizwan or bust is not a team philosophy, it’s a sign of desperation stemming from lack of planning.

Disaster is coming at the World Cup. Babar will soon not be captain of the national T20 team. Saqlain will be gone along with him. I thought it would take another year of misery, but perhaps it won’t be that long.

There has been complete mismanagement of existing resources and failure to develop new talent in the right direction. We have massively regressed.

It’s a sad commentary but the following team of has-beens and fifty-year-olds, many with their own problems, might well do better at the World Cup.

Note that many of them are wild, out-of-control characters. Fixers. Unfit. Discipline problems. One guy couldn’t wake up for his flight. A couple of them are obese. One is a shouter, a bully, and a possible racist. But they approach the game the right way. I only saw Hafeez and Malik after 2015 so I can’t speak for what they were doing earlier but I never saw them play a selfish innings. I didn’t see them prioritize personal statistics over the team’s requirements. Especially true for Hafeez.

Maybe you need a bunch of wild characters, if you’re going to rely on natural talent anyway, although of course rational planning is the better way to go.

Play this team, and screw qudrat ka nizam.

I’m only making a point here, and invite you to compare this team with the existing one, person-to-person, to see how low our expectations have fallen. We were generally on the right track with Mickey/Sarfraz. Toward the end they started faltering. Instead of upgrading the personnel and bringing in new talent, Misbah completely screwed up the team's philosophy. Now it’s hard to put the pieces back together.

Sharjeel Khan
Umar Akmal
Mohammad Hafeez
Azam Khan
Shoaib Malik
Imad Waseem
Sarfraz Ahmed
Faheem Ashraf
Zafar Gohar
Wahab Riaz
Mohammad Amir

 

[Anis Shivani]

I would like to propose this team again in mock-seriousness. Actually, some of them fit right in even today.
In order to accommodate two favored ones, neither of whom is a T20 opener, the entire philosophy has been messed up.
They're no longer playing T20s, and haven't been for a year. Despite this, they get lucky sometimes, because of exceptional bowling, or other reasons not having to do with batting.
It's not going to be possible to put back the pieces unless the main protagonists are dismissed or relegated to different roles, it's too far gone to make an adjustment here or there, bring in a player or two, and hope for different results.
They're willfully locked into a bad philosophy.
The team I listed here would at least play T20s the T20 way.

 

[Suleiman]

Umar Akmal is nowhere near how you remember him. Look him up in current 2022 state.

Azam I can understand despite fitness, he’s a proper striker of the ball.

Serious revisionism when it comes to Sarfraz. He was even more inept at finding the boundary than anyone in the team currently. Sarfraz is a down grade from Rizwan and anyone else in the middle order.

Just because these players had a momentary instance years ago does not mean they are automatically better than what’s in the team (barring Imad, Zafar and possibly Sharjeel)

I bet if this current team was playing and flopping, people would want Asif, Ifti etc as the heroes. Whoever is outside of the team is by default the next big hero who will rescue our team. - this is the mentality of our fans since time immemorial.

I would rather go broke backing on the current team than bring back what looks like a majority of has beens.

 

[jnaveen1980]

Imam Ul Haq ranked 4th in ICC ODI ranking. Is he permanently excluded from T20 due to his slow strike rate?

 

[Anis Shivani]

Umar Akmal is nowhere near how you remember him. Look him up in current 2022 state.

Azam I can understand despite fitness, he’s a proper striker of the ball.

Serious revisionism when it comes to Sarfraz. He was even more inept at finding the boundary than anyone in the team currently. Sarfraz is a down grade from Rizwan and anyone else in the middle order.

Just because these players had a momentary instance years ago does not mean they are automatically better than what’s in the team (barring Imad, Zafar and possibly Sharjeel)

I bet if this current team was playing and flopping, people would want Asif, Ifti etc as the heroes. Whoever is outside of the team is by default the next big hero who will rescue our team. - this is the mentality of our fans since time immemorial.

I would rather go broke backing on the current team than bring back what looks like a majority of has beens.

I was just trying to make a point, not seriously advocating this bunch of players, who are undisciplined, bullies, rebels, fixers, fat, and mostly past their prime. But I would be more entertained watching them play T20s, even today, that this bunch we now have.

As for a serious team, I have proposed something like this one, but only under a different philosophy. Just changing personnel won't do any good at this point.

Saim Ayub / Sahibzada Farhan
Haider Ali
Babar Azam (should not open)
Kamran Ghulam / Tayyab Tahir
Omair bin Yousuf / Saud Shakeel (see if they can up their game for T20s)
Mohammad Rizwan / Haris (rest Rizwan often)
Shadab Khan
Qasim Akram / Mohammad Nawaz
Waseem Jr. / fast-bowling all-rounder
Haris Rauf
Naseem Shah / SSA / Dahani / Hasnain (depending on situation, and rest SSA often)

 

[Anis Shivani]

Imam Ul Haq ranked 4th in ICC ODI ranking. Is he permanently excluded from T20 due to his slow strike rate?

I think it's the culture of selfishness and stats-padding, which I see as a serious problem with some of the current players, that has to change. At the moment whoever you bring in will succumb to their philosophy of prizing their wickets and making below-par scores.

 

[Gharib Aadmi]

Sad to say but 44 year old Mohammad Hafeez should not have retired. We really could use him.

 

[Visaal-E-Yaar]

Next recall shahid afridi and misbah?

 

[Anis Shivani]

Sad to say but 44 year old Mohammad Hafeez should not have retired. We really could use him.

Yes, sad but true. Better to bring in young fearless players, but if not then Hafeez would do a better job than these guys.

 

[Bilal7]

What an absolutely garbage thread.

 

[Energy]

Don't think the OP understands anything about cricket. This thread looks like a fruit cake.

The poster goes on to mention that all the silly names he's quote above 'approach the game the right way'. The game referred to here is definitely not cricket.

Some of the names quoted are the real cowards- not the ones who are playing. Ones who are obese, not bothered to get fit, involved in lobby, spot fix are a closer definition of being a coward. And this guy wants them to be the face of our team. Stupidity knows no level.

 

[Anis Shivani]

Don't think the OP understands anything about cricket. This thread looks like a fruit cake.

The poster goes on to mention that all the silly names he's quote above 'approach the game the right way'. The game referred to here is definitely not cricket.

Some of the names quoted are the real cowards- not the ones who are playing. Ones who are obese, not bothered to get fit, involved in lobby, spot fix are a closer definition of being a coward. And this guy wants them to be the face of our team. Stupidity knows no level.

Do you understand irony? The whole point, as I specifically laid out, is that this bunch of undisciplined, fat, out of control fixers and bullies shows a willingness to play T20s the way they are supposed to be played instead of following some winning formula that no other nation follows.

 

[AAli98]

Struggling to remember a worse middle order in international cricket history than paks current one.

Eng & Ind had woeful middle orders in 90s but they had Azharuddin & Thorpe to put a bit of respectability in.