[VIDEO] Saj's ICC World Cup 2023 Ratings for Pakistan Players

[MenInG]

Saj's no holds-barred take on how our players did in their failed ICC World Cup 2023 campaign:

Who were the shining stars for Pakistan?
Who did enough to deserve more chances in future?
And which players were there just for the Biryani?

 

[Visaal-E-Yaar]

They didn't play with hearts. Simple
They don't care really, too much attitude and ego's.

 

[SpiritOf1903]

Selfish idiots lacking self-respect and no sense of a civic duty for their nation.

None of them should ever represent Pakistan again

 

[mominsaigol]

Woah saj being very aggressive, good, Pakistan cricket team and its shady politics deserve it.

Keep spreading the truth

 

[ssuhaide]

Good video Saj.

Agree with most of your player ratings.

Would give Fakhar 7 instead of 8. Only 3 innings 2 of which very well good but he sort of owns New Zealand whereas he generally struggles against quality bowling.

Would have given Shaheen 6 instead of 7. Yes he was leading wicket taker but he was poor with the new ball and mostly at the death.

Would be nice to see a video of what you would do with the 50 over outfit who you would keep players you would bring in and who should captain.

 

[BaankeJi]

I like those deliberate fumbles "Last and the least" and "42 year old".

 

[Maliq_Mudasir]

Good analysis by Saj as usual. Basis my understanding few things Pak can do as a preparation for CT'25.

Players who should never be picked in any format unless heroics in domestic: Iftikhar, Rauf, Imam, Hassan, Usama Mir, Shadab, Nawaz and Agha Salman.

Players who should be given one more chances with close eye on how they fair against top 5 teams:
Rizwan, Wasim Jnr, Saud, Abdullah

Players who are you best talent and match winner and should be persisted with: Babar and Shaheen.

Apart from this, PCB need to sack Babar from captaincy and give him time to play as a pure batter hoping he would be as fluent as he was during initial days of career.

 

[Saj]

I like those deliberate fumbles "Last and the least" and "42 year old".

Haha

Undeliberate mistakes

 

[Saj]

Would be nice to see a video of what you would do with the 50 over outfit who you would keep players you would bring in and who should captain.

Yes will do in a few days once we have a clearer picture of what PCB plans are.

 

[Saj]

Good video Saj.

Agree with most of your player ratings.

Would give Fakhar 7 instead of 8. Only 3 innings 2 of which very well good but he sort of owns New Zealand whereas he generally struggles against quality bowling.

Would have given Shaheen 6 instead of 7. Yes he was leading wicket taker but he was poor with the new ball and mostly at the death.

Yes Shaheen was a tricky one, wickets but not at his best with the ball.

 

[mazkhan]

Top video and spot on analysis.

 

[Farabi]

Saj's no holds-barred take on how our players did in their failed ICC World Cup 2023 campaign:

Who were the shining stars for Pakistan?
Who did enough to deserve more chances in future?
And which players were there just for the Biryani?

Good analysis and fair ratings overall.

The shocker for me was Rizwan.
65 average and 95 Strike Rate. He contributed heavily in SL and Ned, games that were won. Deserved at least 6 out of 10. 4 was not justified.

 

[mominsaigol]

Good analysis and fair ratings overall.

The shocker for me was Rizwan.
65 average and 95 Strike Rate. He contributed heavily in SL and Ned, games that were won. Deserved at least 6 out of 10. 4 was not justified.

Yes but he failed every single game that followed in a row. His keeping was also terrible in this cup. Which is a suprise since in asia cup it was solid. His drs reviews are also bad.

Theirs more then just one innings to look at

 

[saqib.rai]

When you do a comparative analysis of our players with players from other teams- and also account for the pitches we played at

The Batsmen and the fast bowlers did reasonably well and enough to get us into the top 4
The Spinners were rubbish. Costed us a semi-final spot. Need to pick genuine spinners and not railu kattas for the future

 

[Farabi]

When you do a comparative analysis of our players with players from other teams- and also account for the pitches we played at

The Batsmen and the fast bowlers did reasonably well and enough to get us into the top 4
The Spinners were rubbish. Costed us a semi-final spot. Need to pick genuine spinners and not railu kattas for the future

This is a great point. Everyone immediately goes to long-term problems and doom and gloom. Yes domestic structure has issues, coaching has problem etc but even small tweaks could have made a big difference.
Yes, this wasn’t a perfect campaign. But all we needed were 4 more points. Could we have won vs Afg and SA?
Only if we had planned a new ball bowler and better spinner, which there are a few in the First Class setup, I think we could have qualified anyway. And then from there, it’s matter of 2 games.

 

[saqib.rai]

This is a great point. Everyone immediately goes to long-term problems and doom and gloom. Yes domestic structure has issues, coaching has problem etc but even small tweaks could have made a big difference.
Yes, this wasn’t a perfect campaign. But all we needed were 4 more points. Could we have won vs Afg and SA?
Only if we had planned a new ball bowler and better spinner, which there are a few in the First Class setup, I think we could have qualified anyway. And then from there, it’s matter of 2 games.

Exactly. With an ICC tournament every year now, we need solutions that you have described

Not poori team badal doo. Pora domestic structure badal doo

 

[Naveedahmed1]

Saj's no holds-barred take on how our players did in their failed ICC World Cup 2023 campaign:

Who were the shining stars for Pakistan?
Who did enough to deserve more chances in future?
And which players were there just for the Biryani?

You can't say Abdullah and saud were the same ... big difference between the two just look at the stats plus the match winning 100 ..Abdullah played way better than saud .. Abdullah should be a 6 ifti 5 saud 5... and 5s are not good enough .. ifti avg is pathetic

 

[VForVendetta]

Good analysis by Saj as usual. Basis my understanding few things Pak can do as a preparation for CT'25.

Players who should never be picked in any format unless heroics in domestic: Iftikhar, Rauf, Imam, Hassan, Usama Mir, Shadab, Nawaz and Agha Salman.

As far as t20's are concerned Iftekhar, Rauf & Shadab are perfectly suitable. They should be persisted with in this format.

Players who should be given one more chances with close eye on how they fair against top 5 teams:
Rizwan, Wasim Jnr, Saud, Abdullah

Players who are you best talent and match winner and should be persisted with: Babar and Shaheen.

I think you meant Fakhar & Shaheen, specially when you are talking about match winners. As far as white ball formats are concerned Fakhar is the biggest match winning batsman & nobody is even close.

Apart from this, PCB need to sack Babar from captaincy and give him time to play as a pure batter hoping he would be as fluent as he was during initial days of career.

 

[Suleiman]

Take out Fakhar’s one innings Vs NZ and name me any other worthwhile performance by a Pakistani in this WC.

All of them were either useless or overshadowed.

 

[VForVendetta]

@Saj I think you are being way too generous with some of these guys, specially Shadab, Nawaz, Mir & Imam. I would rate them lower. Also Rauf doesn't deserve as much. But I understand why you may hold yourself.

 

[Swashbuckler]

Rauf and Imam deserve zero. Pakistani spinners deserve negative marks, they are the main reason why the team had such a poor campaign, have never seen such trash spin bowling my entire life, contrast this to the 2011 WC where opponents had to deal with 30 overs of Ajmal, Afridi, Hafeez.

 

[Cric1234]

When you do a comparative analysis of our players with players from other teams- and also account for the pitches we played at

The Batsmen and the fast bowlers did reasonably well and enough to get us into the top 4
The Spinners were rubbish. Costed us a semi-final spot. Need to pick genuine spinners and not railu kattas for the future

The batting line up collapsed against India fail to bat 50 overs against Australia on a flat pitch and small ground were never in the game against England and were under par against South Africa and Afghanistan.

That’s hardly deserving of a semi final based on those performances by the batsmen.

 

[zaidihusain]

When you do a comparative analysis of our players with players from other teams- and also account for the pitches we played at

The Batsmen and the fast bowlers did reasonably well and enough to get us into the top 4
The Spinners were rubbish. Costed us a semi-final spot. Need to pick genuine spinners and not railu kattas for the future

Spinners were without any doubt terrible throughout the WC but you are mistaken if you think batsmen & fast bowlers did reasonably well.

1. What was the contribution of Rizwan apart from match against Netherlands & Sri Lanka?

2. Babar played only 1 good inning against NZ and we won that match because of DRS. Babar did nothing and threw his wicket against Netherlands, Sri Lanka, India, Australia, Bangladesh. His 2 50s against SA & Afghan were too slow and because of that team didn't scored more than 300. Babar was no match with batters of other teams

3. Imam: Except against Australia, he threw his wicket in every single game. Even against Australia he should have played long inning.

4. Iftikhar: Calls himself best finisher but didn't finish a single match. Played well only against Afghan

5. Abdullah & Saud: Played couple of good innings but they didn't got many opportunities in ODIs before this WC

6. Fakhar: Played exceptional inning against Nz & Bang but threw his wicket in 2 other matches he played

7. Shaheen: Bowled well only against Australia, expansive & ineffective against all other teams

8. Haris Rauf: Disaster

9. Hasan Ali: Bowled in ok in 1 or 2 matches only, expansive most of the time

10. Wasim Jnr: Bowled well in limited matches he got

 

[Saj]

Good analysis and fair ratings overall.

The shocker for me was Rizwan.
65 average and 95 Strike Rate. He contributed heavily in SL and Ned, games that were won. Deserved at least 6 out of 10. 4 was not justified.

Reason for 4 was that he flopped in key matches, his constant wasting of reviews also and he was a part of the leadership group that was clueless. In addition his keeping was very average.

 

[Saj]

You can't say Abdullah and saud were the same ... big difference between the two just look at the stats plus the match winning 100 ..Abdullah played way better than saud .. Abdullah should be a 6 ifti 5 saud 5... and 5s are not good enough .. ifti avg is pathetic

Again key moments, Abdullah didn't produce:

0 v England
4 v NZ
9 v S Africa
20 v India

33 runs in 4 key matches.

 

[Saj]

@Saj I think you are being way too generous with some of these guys, specially Shadab, Nawaz, Mir & Imam. I would rate them lower. Also Rauf doesn't deserve as much. But I understand why you may hold yourself.

Haha, yes maybe some could have been lower

Rauf I gave slightly higher than the lowest ratings as he took 16 wickets.

 

[rhony]

Saj's no holds-barred take on how our players did in their failed ICC World Cup 2023 campaign:

Who were the shining stars for Pakistan?
Who did enough to deserve more chances in future?
And which players were there just for the Biryani?

Good review overall but Abdullah and Saud warrant higher ratings. We need to consider this is their first world cup. More importantly they weren't first choice players when they came for the world cup either. They were thrown into the middle and they did well considering all the factors. They are for the future and it's a promising start.

 

[Saj]

Good review overall but Abdullah and Saud warrant higher ratings. We need to consider this is their first world cup. More importantly they weren't first choice players when they came for the world cup either. They were thrown into the middle and they did well considering all the factors. They are for the future and it's a promising start.

Abduallah's 4 flops I've mentioned above.

Saud I thought could and should have done better also - 4 times he was out between 25 and 31. That is frustrating and not the type of innings that are going to win you matches.

 

[rhony]

Abduallah's 4 flops I've mentioned above.

Saud I thought could and should have done better also - 4 times he was out between 25 and 31. That is frustrating and not the type of innings that are going to win you matches.

What needs to be considered is if there was a senior batsman like Babar or Rizwan was on the other end when he was dismissed. If thats the case, its reckless. At this stage of their careers, they need guidance from the other end especially during pressure matches like in a world cup. The art of building an innings after getting a start doesn't come naturally to batsmen unless they play a lot of innings under guidance. The guidance typically is how to target certain bowlers and play out the rest. The scoring areas and building partnerships.

 

[Naveedahmed1]

Again key moments, Abdullah didn't produce:

0 v England
4 v NZ
9 v S Africa
20 v India

33 runs in 4 key matches.

you cant pick and choose games.... every game is a key game in WC. Abdullah had a century which set up a game and can be called match winning... he also created impact in a lot of games while he was batting with Imam who was a dud. In short, he created more impact that Saud who only had one good innings against SA; thats it!

 

[GLORY OF '92]

Brilliant analysis.

Some might say some of the ratings are harsh but I say keep standards high and we should expect a lot more than the team is producing.

For Imam and Nawaz I do think 1/10 was fair possibly.

 

[dodski]

Selfish idiots lacking self-respect and no sense of a civic duty for their nation.

None of them should ever represent Pakistan again

maybe they are just protecting their good reputation as a star Pakistan cricket player

 

[Saj]

you cant pick and choose games.... every game is a key game in WC. Abdullah had a century which set up a game and can be called match winning... he also created impact in a lot of games while he was batting with Imam who was a dud. In short, he created more impact that Saud who only had one good innings against SA; thats it!

We can nitpick, but in my opinion failing in 4 matches against stronger teams isn't great. Only scoring 33 runs in those 4 matches is poor.

 

[Farabi]

Reason for 4 was that he flopped in key matches, his constant wasting of reviews also and he was a part of the leadership group that was clueless. In addition his keeping was very average.

Still, I feel at least 5. Keeping and batting were OK.

 

[The Bald Eagle]

Still, I feel at least 5. Keeping and batting were OK.

Yeah I second you. Rizwan wasn't that bad. A 5 rating would have been more justified.