I think we dined out on that CT17 win a tad too much. Despite some phenomenal performances especially against England and India, we were ranked 8th in ODIs before that tournament for a reason. Most importantly, the limitations of the stars of that tournament became apparent.
Fakhar Zaman even in that tournament was not convincing at all against the short ball, his helmet must have averaged 30 alone. He's scored runs in crunch games - T20 final vs Australia, 3rd ODI vs New Zealand in UAE, was our best bat by a distance in the 5-0 whitewash in NZ - so I still have a soft spot for him and still retains a decent ODI record, but opponents have exposed his technical flaws. And at his age I don't know if they're fixable.
Hasan Ali bowled exceptionally well but as discussed endlessly here, a bowler of his height has such little margin for error with length. He's also picked up injuries and with emergence of Shaheen, Naseem, Rauf and Hasnain he's suddenly at the back of the line.
Shadab Khan was tipped as our next premier all-rounder, and management still rates him highly as he finds himself in squads in all formats and is captain of Islamabad United. However Shadab leaks way too many runs for a frontline spinner, he's always liable to bowl one bad ball an over.
This is Shadab's record since the start of the 2018 Asia Cup compared with other spinners who've played more than 10 ODIs. You see Shadab's not in that
elite class.
I feel management have
overplayed him and not allowed him to learn his craft in domestic cricket where he can work on his accuracy bowling long spells. His batting also needs work, his SR is
appalling for a lower order batsman !
Sarfraz captained his troops exceptionally well but he failed to finish teams off from advantageous positions. His batting form nosedived and couldn't justify his own place.
WORST mistake of all however was not retiring Mohammed Hafeez and Shoaib Malik afterwards ! They could've left on a high but we prolonged their careers despite being sitting ducks against quality pace. Both have horrid records outside Asia and were passengers at the World Cup. I cannot believe Haris Sohail and Hussain Talat sat out so many games for these guys because of our senior worshipping mentality !
Ultimately Pakistan, like West Indies in 2004, couldn't sustain that one-off success because of a weak system that fails to improve youngsters that start their careers with a bang only to fade away once opponents do their homework. The players got complacent and management compounded the situation with poor strategies. However CT17 remains the fondest cricket memory of my life and we should be proud of how we upset the odds.
