A closer look at his World Cup numbers:
0 v England
4 v NZ
9 v South Africa
20 v India
Just 33 runs in 4 very important matches against the stronger teams.
To add to Saj's stats:
While he ended up with an average of 42 and a SR of 93 which in theory seems respectable, let's take a look a bit deeper.
I plotted a worm of all of his innings. And what was striking to me was just how slowly Abdullah starts. The black line is if he scores at a run a ball.
As you can see, Abdullah never really cosses that 100 SR line convincingly (except against SL but that was only towards the end of his innings).
What is funny, is that you see CLEAR spikes when he gets to 25, and spikes when he gets to 50. To me, this suggests that he has the ability to press on the gas but doesn't because 1) He stat padds or because 2) he geniunly needs time to get in.
The issue is that because he is VERY slow to start, if he gets out before 25 he eats up so many balls and put a lot of pressure on the other batsmen. For example, he made 9(17) against South Africa and 4(9) against NZ when we were chasing 400+.
And look at the gray worm against Afghanistan. At one stage, he was 35 from 31, but got out at 58 (75). That means he scored his last 23 runs from 44 balls! Which is crazy since he was already set.
While I do think he has potential, (he has shown the ability to get in, and has good technique), he needs to show more intent; otherwise, he should get the boot.