Wahab Riaz playing the tour match against Australia!

[Monsee]

So, as useless as he has been lately (generally for last 1-2 years now), who was the brilliant guy that decided not to play any specialist spinners in the only tour match for Australia before the first test...yet, decided to include one of the main fast bowlers in the same game?

Wahab has been useless but that 'haven't faced him before or in a while' factor was totally conceded by having him bowl to the same Aussie team in the tour match.

As the 1st test started, he was as useless as a batsman bowling a few overs of medium pace i.e. no threat at all!

He bowled 27 overs for 80 odd runs and did not look threatening at all (no surprizes there). He went wicketless in both the games, brilliant. Besides the pitch easing out/slowing down on the last day, Sarfraz's ameteur style captaincy, IMO Wahab was one of the main reasons for Pak team not being able to force a win.

 

[BreadPakoda]

Two words - fear factor. The Ozzies have been afraid of him from the day he bowled that hostile spell in 2015 world cup. So Wahab was in the team as an enforcer to soften up the batsman and allow other bowlers to benefit from it.

 

[Monsee]

Two words - fear factor. The Ozzies have been afraid of him from the day he bowled that hostile spell in 2015 world cup. So Wahab was in the team as an enforcer to soften up the batsman and allow other bowlers to benefit from it.

Yes, you might be right but two things were totally wrong here:

- He was played in the tour match, did not get a single wicket and all Aussie batsmen saw the tripe he bowled for 'Phaast Bowling'
- He was well below 140 KMH in most of his spells in the test; on a slow pitch like that if he was bowling in 130's, how was he supposed to rough up any batsmen?

Every time he bowled in the match, it seemed like he was just there as an extra bowler, not someone who was supposed to play a amjor role. Based on how Abbass performed, maybe playing Mir Hamza could have been a much better call!

 

[Bhaijaan]

He was once a force to reckon with.

 

[gazza619]

He was once a force to reckon with.

The bad thing about Wahab is previous game was not the fact that he didnt take any wickets. I mean that was an absolute road and even Starc was looking ordinary.
The bad thing was his body language. He just looked defeated even before he started his spell

 

[Bhaijaan]

The bad thing about Wahab is previous game was not the fact that he didnt take any wickets. I mean that was an absolute road and even Starc was looking ordinary.
The bad thing was his body language. He just looked defeated even before he started his spell

Because my brother he is ageing. I salute his fitness standard that he is still playing international cricket for a country like Pakistan. It's a shame his last year or so is being totally wasted by unfairly playing him on dead roads. Just harsh on any fast bowler.

 

[New Yorker]

Two words - fear factor. The Ozzies have been afraid of him from the day he bowled that hostile spell in 2015 world cup. So Wahab was in the team as an enforcer to soften up the batsman and allow other bowlers to benefit from it.

Who was afraid of him, besides Watson? Everyone else played him with ease.

 

[New Yorker]

He was once a force to reckon with.

In which case Ishant Sharma is an all conquering World Slayer, and we are simply left with no words to describe an actual quality bowler like say, Zaheer Khan, let alone a Wasim Akram.

How can a bowler with only 2 5fers in his career be called a force of anything?

 

[FastBowlingAllrounder]

Two words - fear factor. The Ozzies have been afraid of him from the day he bowled that hostile spell in 2015 world cup. So Wahab was in the team as an enforcer to soften up the batsman and allow other bowlers to benefit from it.

The players he roughed up in that (legendary) spell (Warner, Watson, Clarke) weren't even playing this game and even if he really had the intent of softening up the batsmen, he wouldn't bowl at 130-135km/h. He would've probably cranked his pace up for a couple of 3-4 over spells and bowled some short stuff rather than running in with an old ball bowling at an ordinary pace and just trying to hit off stump (which he very rarely got right).

 

[CadPakFan]

A lot of questions will be answered in this next test.

 

[Usman Chadda]

The hilarious factor is how people here were asking Wahab to be a part of the test team before this match. Calling Mickey and Sarfraz all sorts of names for not selecting him. Now they are nowhere to be seen