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Who is the most important player right now in the Pakistan team?

B_Positive

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1. Fakhar Zaman: He made his impact as soon as he debut in CT. And assures a victory almost everytime he bats. In a bowling dominant nation, he gives the perfect support with his batting.

2. Shadab Khan: Not only is he a clever bowler but a very good batsman as well. He can strike well as well. He has the ability to break threatening partnerships like he did against Aussies in tri series final.

3. Hasan Ali: He has just risen above all in recent times and has made a spot for himself in Pakistan team.

4. Mo. Amir: Well he has left all the backlash behind and proven why he was necessary to the team.

5. Sarfaraz Ahmed: Captain, Great batsman who can change gears and can bat in any situation. He led us in CT 2017. He won the game single handedly against SL there. And since then he has been doing it time and again.

Or anyone else of your choice with a reason?
 
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Most will disagree with me but faheem ashraf is shaping up to be a very valuable player. If he can open the attack and get us the wickets and maintain a good eco rate and add some quick runs at 6,7 or 8, I think he becomes our MVP
 
Babar Azam.

We have always been a fragile batting line up and he brings much needed stability and alllows Fakhar to play his game too.

He is the key behind the resurgence. Of our side in my opinion.
 
F Z - he is a rare breed who holds himself together in pressure situations.
 
Babar Azam.

We have always been a fragile batting line up and he brings much needed stability and alllows Fakhar to play his game too.

He is the key behind the resurgence. Of our side in my opinion.

I wanted to list him but didnt because he doesnt give assurance that he can finish well. He rarely performs under pressure.
 
I would probably say Fakhar Zaman. He is extremely important to our LOI team as he is the one who has to set the tone for the other batters in terms of getting runs and attacking the opposition.
 
Fakhar Zaman is the most important player. Without him Pakistan batting line up is one dimensional.
 
Most important player should be one of the bowlers. Bowlers are bowling well to avoid pressure on batting. It should be Hassan Ali.
 
Babar Azam. We rarely produce top batsmen . Babar seems to be 1. Capable of scoring big and has the potential to score in all conditions. He'll only get better from here.
 
Babar and Fakhar are tied for the 2 most important players in the team. Both are a godsend for this team.
 
It is an average team so it is hard pinpoint a player who is more important than the rest, but relatively speaking, Fakhar is arguably the most crucial player at the moment.

He is the only batsman who is capable of scoring at a 120+ SR against any opposition on his day, and if he gets going, he can propel the team to a big total.

Without him, we don’t have enough firepower to post big totals.
 
It is an average team so it is hard pinpoint a player who is more important than the rest, but relatively speaking, Fakhar is arguably the most crucial player at the moment.

He is the only batsman who is capable of scoring at a 120+ SR against any opposition on his day, and if he gets going, he can propel the team to a big total.

Without him, we don’t have enough firepower to post big totals.

Agreed, Mr.Fluke and Mr.Luck are the two most important players in Pakistan team who were lucky to fluke it in the Champions Trophy and now against Australia.
 
It is an average team so it is hard pinpoint a player who is more important than the rest, but relatively speaking, Fakhar is arguably the most crucial player at the moment.

He is the only batsman who is capable of scoring at a 120+ SR against any opposition on his day, and if he gets going, he can propel the team to a big total.

Without him, we don’t have enough firepower to post big totals.

Its not an average team imo. It has progressed a lot in last one year. Its one of the best around right now
 
Its not an average team imo. It has progressed a lot in last one year. Its one of the best around right now

We saw that in the ODI series in New Zealand. All this progress has been artificial because we have played a lot of minnows and weak teams in the last year. The only time we were up against a quality team in an ODI series, we were thrashed.
 
Most will disagree with me but faheem ashraf is shaping up to be a very valuable player. If he can open the attack and get us the wickets and maintain a good eco rate and add some quick runs at 6,7 or 8, I think he becomes our MVP

lol he is the least important player. Only player who arguably produces nothing ball or bat. A man who doesn't bowl 10 overs, and is playing a specialist no.8 batsman. It's honestly laughable. Not only is he currently doing nothing, but he isn't even given the opportunity to do much either.

He's already had a year in international cricket. He's played all three formats too. And there's less than a year till the world cup. Is he seriously going to be ready by then? And are we giving him enough opportunity to do so?

Think we cut him a lot of slack because he's the famed pace allrounder we're looking for. Nawaz and Imad though not brilliant players have performed better and unlike him are able to bowl full 10 over quota without too much trouble. Yet get a lot of criticism on here. Nawaz is even the same age as Fahim, and I saw a post calling him a TTF and rating Fahim lol.

A lot of people rate fahim on here. I think he has talent, but it's a lot of work to develop him, 4 years work not 1 year, he's extremely raw more so than other players. And I kind of wonder whether we're at the world cup and people will still be claiming we need to give Fahim time/persist with him to the detriment of our world cup plans. I mean he's picked for his potential with his batting mainly, and averages aside, he hasn't even been quick runs.
 
It's Fakhar currently, has the most impact and is in form. Before that was Babar.
 
lol he is the least important player. Only player who arguably produces nothing ball or bat. A man who doesn't bowl 10 overs, and is playing a specialist no.8 batsman. It's honestly laughable. Not only is he currently doing nothing, but he isn't even given the opportunity to do much either.

He's already had a year in international cricket. He's played all three formats too. And there's less than a year till the world cup. Is he seriously going to be ready by then? And are we giving him enough opportunity to do so?

Think we cut him a lot of slack because he's the famed pace allrounder we're looking for. Nawaz and Imad though not brilliant players have performed better and unlike him are able to bowl full 10 over quota without too much trouble. Yet get a lot of criticism on here. Nawaz is even the same age as Fahim, and I saw a post calling him a TTF and rating Fahim lol.

A lot of people rate fahim on here. I think he has talent, but it's a lot of work to develop him, 4 years work not 1 year, he's extremely raw more so than other players. And I kind of wonder whether we're at the world cup and people will still be claiming we need to give Fahim time/persist with him to the detriment of our world cup plans. I mean he's picked for his potential with his batting mainly, and averages aside, he hasn't even been quick runs.

Who would you replace faheem with?
 
I agree.

Faheem is a pointless player who doesn’t make the team either on batting or bowling merit, and unlike Shadab, he doesn’t excel in the field either.

His hype is out of desperation. We have longed for a fast bowling all-rounder, and he is the only one who fits the bill for now. It doesn’t mean he is any good.

He barely contributes anything with the bat, and he is keeping the likes of Shaheen and Shinwari out of the team who are much better bowlers.
 
The most important player to my mind is the player who cannot be replaced.

In Tests

1. Yasir Shah. No other consistent match winner, though Abbas could begin to
fill that role. When neither are available or firing it becomes difficult to see Pakistan
winning Tests in varying conditions.

ODIs

2. Fakhar and Hasan. Sarfraz as captain only, his player attributes are adequate, and there is no obviously better replacement, but it has become hard to imagine Pakistan winning in ODIs without
him, just as we disproportionately suffer the absence or poor form of Fakhar and Hasan. Shadab
close second rung. Invaluable as an allrounder, with ball, bat and fielding. His best days in all facets
are yet to come I believe. Would like to see him tried as an opener at some point.

T20s

3. Fakhar, Sahadab and again, Sarfraz, as captain. This is also his best format as player.

Babar is a standout performer in LOIs but I dont' feel that he has been so impactful as
a player.
 
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I agree.

Faheem is a pointless player who doesn’t make the team either on batting or bowling merit, and unlike Shadab, he doesn’t excel in the field either.

His hype is out of desperation. We have longed for a fast bowling all-rounder, and he is the only one who fits the bill for now. It doesn’t mean he is any good.

He barely contributes anything with the bat, and he is keeping the likes of Shaheen and Shinwari out of the team who are much better bowlers.

His allrounder pretensions apart, Faheem is a vastly underrated T20 bowler; has some of the best stats of any Pakistani bowler in this format, particularly in economy. Always provides control, and is surprisingly likely to pick up wickets. I don't know why, but he manages to bowl a heavy ball very often.
 
Babar Azam. We rarely produce top batsmen . Babar seems to be 1. Capable of scoring big and has the potential to score in all conditions. He'll only get better from here.

Yes, Capable of. Potential to. Babar promises to be important, but has been surprisingly discreet so fa . Has been awful in Tests, and while prolific in ODIs and T20s, and provides important ballast up front, but rarely seizes a game by the scruff of the neck.
 
Fakhar Zaman easily. Provides the impetus we needed in the opening overs and has proven in the big stages he can perform with the bat. Babar used to be the most important but has tailed somewhat.

Faheem has been poor even since CT. It seems like the only reason he is in the team is because he can bat a bit and bowl a bit, and was part of the team who won the CT. Would much rather have a specialist bowler in place of him as we already have Hasan, Asif Ali and Shadab as lower order batsmen.
 
Fakhar Zaman.


But for the sake of memes, i think all credit goes to Fluke, Luck and C team for their contribution.
 
Fakar Zaman and Hasan Ali.

The rest are all replaceable. No one worries about any other players in Pak team. The above 2 are the only ones that opponents will be vary about.
 
Shadab Khan, he contributes in all 3 departments.

Faheem Ashraf. His bowling is as good as a regular fast bowler and he can contribute down the order like he did in tests. I'm not bothered by his low scores in limited overs. He hardly gets enough balls to score runs.
 
4) Sarfraz. His fitness and batting are questionable at times but there is no denying that under his leadership the team has improved a lot and he seems to get the best out of the players. Also leading the team to CT victory was incredible considering the state the team was in when he took over as a captain.

3) Hassan Ali. Hassan has shown immense potential, potential to be the next great Pakistani bowler. Unlike Amir he has shown passion and hard work, his fitness is impressive when compared to other Pakistani players.

2) Babar Azam. If he lives up to his potential he will be gold for Pakistan. His consistency is something very unlike Pakistani batsman. Even against weaker teams Pakistan sometimes loses matches because they are not a consistent side, he bring consistency to the side-which is very important. If he can replicate his consistent performance against top sides then he will be priceless for Pakistani.

1) Fakhar Zaman. Similar to Babar he is very unlike typical Pakistani players. He posses the hitting power with the temperament that no other Pakistani has. He is the only modern player we have that can compete with other big hitter around the world such as Sharma, Munro, Gubtil, and Roy. We saw how his aggressive style changed the whole team in CT. He has shown the ability to take games away from oppositions and win games from very difficult position, as he showed against Aus.
In short Fakhar is the most important player for Pakistan currently.
 
Who would you replace faheem with?

A batsman who ideally can bowl a bit (or focus on making his overs up with part timers in our squads). Or a bowler who bowls 10 overs well to rival our main time bowlers.

Faheem bowls to the standard of a decent part timer, and bats to the standard of a tailender. He's providing literally zilch and competely replaceable. You could even replace him with an allrounder in Wasim who's done better.
 
Fakhar by a country mile. I kinda call it the drop off test, where you see how much the team would suffer if a player is replaced by the next best option. And see which player has the highest drop in terms of overall team quality.

We would be unrecognizable if we lost Zaman at the top of the order.
 
Our batting has always been our weak point while we could always count on our bowlers to deliver in one way or another. With this in mind my list for the ODIs would be:

Fakhar
Babar
Malik/Sarfraz

There is no bowler in the list because when it comes to bowling we don't need any particular bowler to step up and carry a big part of the burden. They can all be trusted to chime in as a pack and perform well as a unit. (Unless if it's a tournament final, then we need Amir to finally show up to the party and lead from the front.)

However when it comes to batting we do heavily rely on a certain Fakhar Zaman to give us a positive start and set the tone for the rest of our batting. Then we need someone like Babar to play out a solid innings and provide backbone to our batting while preventing a total batting collapse.

Finally Malik is on my list because he is a senior. Not out of respect for seniors but because I feel like as a senior he must shoulder big part of responsibility and help our batting to end on a high and to fight it out in pressure situations. If he can't do that consistently then there is no use for his experience and expertise in the team.

Same with Sarfraz he is the captain and the ounce must be on him to guide the batting home.

You could say Shadab and Hasan come next purely because from time to time we need them to dig us out of the hole when the top batsmen fail completely.

Rest are new and unproven kids on the block and have to first prove their worth before they can be considered as an important part of the team. We desperately need someone like Asif Ali who can hit big down the order but we shouldn't be counting the chickens before they hatch.
 
lol he is the least important player. Only player who arguably produces nothing ball or bat. A man who doesn't bowl 10 overs, and is playing a specialist no.8 batsman. It's honestly laughable. Not only is he currently doing nothing, but he isn't even given the opportunity to do much either.

He's already had a year in international cricket. He's played all three formats too. And there's less than a year till the world cup. Is he seriously going to be ready by then? And are we giving him enough opportunity to do so?

Think we cut him a lot of slack because he's the famed pace allrounder we're looking for. Nawaz and Imad though not brilliant players have performed better and unlike him are able to bowl full 10 over quota without too much trouble. Yet get a lot of criticism on here. Nawaz is even the same age as Fahim, and I saw a post calling him a TTF and rating Fahim lol.

A lot of people rate fahim on here. I think he has talent, but it's a lot of work to develop him, 4 years work not 1 year, he's extremely raw more so than other players. And I kind of wonder whether we're at the world cup and people will still be claiming we need to give Fahim time/persist with him to the detriment of our world cup plans. I mean he's picked for his potential with his batting mainly, and averages aside, he hasn't even been quick runs.
Can we have some evidence where Nawaz has performed better than Faheem so far? Imad is a better cricketer than Faheem right now, agreed
 
Can we have some evidence where Nawaz has performed better than Faheem so far? Imad is a better cricketer than Faheem right now, agreed

Nawaz averages 23 with the bat at a SR of 97. Better than Fahim's 15 at a lower SR.

Nawaz hasn't really played better than Fahim, but they've been around the same output. Which is why I think it's a bit silly why people are ready to bash Nawaz. A big difference between them too is that Nawaz is expected to bowl 10 overs, while Fahim isn't. And pure bowling wise I see more in Nawaz than I do in Fahim.
 
It is an average team so it is hard pinpoint a player who is more important than the rest, but relatively speaking, Fakhar is arguably the most crucial player at the moment.

He is the only batsman who is capable of scoring at a 120+ SR against any opposition on his day, and if he gets going, he can propel the team to a big total.

Without him, we don’t have enough firepower to post big totals.
Actually this unit is an improvement to the Misbah era. Team has loads of clutch players who often play above their abilities for the teams cause. It is a team united and most of positive sincere fans are glad with the depth this team has specially in bowling
 
Shoaib Malik ! Whenever he plays well Pakistan invariably wins . His innings play a decisive role on results. Fakar Zaman is an important part of unit but Malik plays a bigger role.
 
Shoaib Malik

Unpopular choice for everyone I'm sure but he's the most important player in this lineup.

Firstly, no bowler over the past couple of years has grabbed the bull by the horns and emerged as a real game changer. Most of our wickets are shared by all 5 bowlers so the most important player has to be from the batsman's side.

Now why do I pick Shoaib Malik as the most important player when we have Babar and Fakhar going great guns? Allow me to explain.

Malik's performance graph ever since he came back to the team after the World Cup 2015 has been prolific to say the least. Averages about 50 at a SR of close to 100. This combination of average and SR is better than both Babar's and Fakhar's.

People will always come back and say that Malik is woeful against quality opposition and is only good at bashing the minnows. While this is somewhat true, we conveniently forget the importance of bashing a minnow. At the World Cup in 2019, in order to make the semi-finals, Pakistan needs to beat Bangladesh, West Indies, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and 2 of England/NZ/Australia/SA/India. In order for us to beat those minnow 4, so to speak, Malik is the most important player. And there have been many times where Malik has saved our blushes against these minnows. We were destined to lose against Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe but it was Malik along with Yamin who ensured we got to the target - we lost that match due to bad light but Malik had that match won. No other batsman in the side could've won us that match other than Malik. In the recent T20s against Scotland, it was his hitting that allowed us to go from ending up on 160 to finishing close to 200.

Over the past couple of years with Babar, we have all seen that Babar fails to accelerate enough for us to be targeting 350. His prolific run scoring comes at a final SR of 90, which having consumed 100 balls on average, is frankly not enough. This is where Malik has come in and consistently propelled us to scores that are defend-able with his power hitting. Otherwise with Babar and no power hitter we will end up with 260 and that is simply not good enough in this day and age. This is in no way to belittle Babar's contribution because it's his contribution in the first place that allows Malik the luxury of power hitting but one has to also look at the fact that Babar's 100 still almost always makes Pakistan end up with 260-280 rather than 330.

Coming to Fakhar, Fakhar is indeed a great asset right now for Pakistan but what I've seen of Fakhar is that he will never bat out the 50 overs ever. He will almost always end up scoring 60-70 runs on his good day at a good SR but get out by the 20-25th over. We need more than that.

Shoaib Malik's importance to the team cannot be emphasized enough. He's the kind of batsman who will smack 70 off 30 at the death and can also play the Misbah role of stabilizing the innings once we're 30-3. In our lineup we have no other batsman who can play that role.

Having said that, I am also privy to the fact that Malik becomes extremely limited against swinging and seaming conditions and quality pace bowling but we have to understand that ODIs these days, and especially the World Cup, will be played on flat batting paradises, where Malik's ability to impose himself on the game is such gold dust for Pakistan.
 
We saw that in the ODI series in New Zealand. All this progress has been artificial because we have played a lot of minnows and weak teams in the last year. The only time we were up against a quality team in an ODI series, we were thrashed.

I guess bad NZ series is being given too much weight than its deserves. Yes we didnt play well but its one of the most difficult places to play crcket now a days for the sub continental teams due to the bounce and swing.

Its a young team and such conditions are never easy when other than Malik and Hafeez, no player have played 100 matches and if exclude Amir and Sarfaraz who are yet to play 100 matches as well the rest of the squad didnt even have 100 matches between them.

India also lost 4-0 to NZ during their peak time near to when they won chanpions trophy. Its been some years when any subcontinental team have won a series there.
 
Fakhar Zaman and Babar Azam for me in ODIs and Malik also with them in T20s. Its batting where we lack man to man replacement. Bowling reserves are really good.
 
Nawaz averages 23 with the bat at a SR of 97. Better than Fahim's 15 at a lower SR.

Nawaz hasn't really played better than Fahim, but they've been around the same output. Which is why I think it's a bit silly why people are ready to bash Nawaz. A big difference between them too is that Nawaz is expected to bowl 10 overs, while Fahim isn't. And pure bowling wise I see more in Nawaz than I do in Fahim.
How many innings for both? Also provide match context. Nawaz is a tail-ender IMO. Seen enough of him to realize he will never amount to anything as a batsman. Handy bowler on gripping surfaces
 
One of the best teams pakistan has had in a while, one of the main reasons for this is because we are not relying on one player, everyone chips in and puts in a shift when required. Since the CT 2017 run i think we can safely say this team is above average in LOI's, bar the blip in New Zealand (can happen to the best) we have been performing very well in t20 and ODI. Call it luck call it a fluke call it whatever you want but i am enjoying watching this new generation of players prosper.
 
Cannot emphasize the importance of Shoaib Malik more. He is fulcrum of this batting line-up. I wish he was only 25 years old.
 
Cannot emphasize the importance of Shoaib Malik more. He is fulcrum of this batting line-up. I wish he was only 25 years old.

He was batting at number 6-8 when he was 25

The guy really should have been the one to take over after Inzi, YK and Yousuf ended their ODI careers. He had a few years of being sidelined and out of form, but his final run into the World Cup seems to be his best ever and most important run.
 
Babar Azam.

Wicket fell in first game against India, led to collapse.

Wicket against Afghanistan led to a big big scare.

Run out against India and never really recovered.

Fakhar is hit and miss,we all know about Amir and Hassan has been off too recently.
 
From an Indian perspective - Most important players -

Shaheen Afridi - Loads of talent. Can be a superstar if handled well. But we all know how Pakistani management works.

Amir - The guy is on and off. One thing I like about him is, he does seem to want to do well and perform. Wonder how much effort he is putting in. I suspect he needs a mentor. Had this Amir been bowling under Virat Kohli, he would be a super star by now.
 
Sarfraz - the guy can leave Khan behind with a WC in 2019.... and Bradman with another win in 2020.

He is the heart, lungs, kidney (& belly) of this team.
 
Sarfraz - the guy can leave Khan behind with a WC in 2019.... and Bradman with another win in 2020.

He is the heart, lungs, kidney (& belly) of this team.

His captaincy is very mediocre. The 2019 format is going to expose him even more rather than help him.

There is a reason why teams like Portsmouth, Wigan win FA cups but fail miserably in the league. Similarly Pakistan is a Cup team and not a league team. The 2019 world cup is a marathon and Pakistan will duly struggle led by Sarfraz.
 
Bhogle said that there is a thinking that Babar is Pakistan's Kohli but the truth is that Malik is Pakistan's Kohli.
 
Malik, Zaman and Babar...heck if we're talking about write now i'd mention the kid Afridi!
 
Somehow found this thread - I think, going into WC, the most important 2 players will be :

Babar, without him scoring around 500 runs, PAK won't have any realistic chance to make the SF.
And ....... Amir - unless he makes his presence felt with new ball, same like Babar - he'll have to take at least 12 wickets in preliminary stages (8 games, I take 1 game rest/injury) and at least 6 of those 12 in first spell.
 
Somehow found this thread - I think, going into WC, the most important 2 players will be :

Babar, without him scoring around 500 runs, PAK won't have any realistic chance to make the SF.
And ....... Amir - unless he makes his presence felt with new ball, same like Babar - he'll have to take at least 12 wickets in preliminary stages (8 games, I take 1 game rest/injury) and at least 6 of those 12 in first spell.

Shaheen is more important imo
 
Shaheen is more important imo

No way - he'll find his 2nd year syndrome during WC against full strength teams. Also, 9 games in less than 5 weeks isn't going to be easy. If it was in AUS or SAF, could have been a chance, but my hunch is in first few games he'll struggle big time to control the new ball in early English summer. Amir has to contribute with bat as well and he has to lead the bowling attack, be the go to guy for Captain- Shaheen can only expect to play the Aquib Javed role of 1992 WC, but the bowling leader has to be Amir, or PAK won't make SF.
 
No way - he'll find his 2nd year syndrome during WC against full strength teams. Also, 9 games in less than 5 weeks isn't going to be easy. If it was in AUS or SAF, could have been a chance, but my hunch is in first few games he'll struggle big time to control the new ball in early English summer. Amir has to contribute with bat as well and he has to lead the bowling attack, be the go to guy for Captain- Shaheen can only expect to play the Aquib Javed role of 1992 WC, but the bowling leader has to be Amir, or PAK won't make SF.

Shaheen is more important to the team than amir. Amir can be replaced with Shinwari. Shaheen can't. SSA has been our strike bowler i don't even know why amir's still in the team.
 
Shobby and Bobby. Former is spiritual leader, latter is the batting inspiration.
 
I still don't understand how blindly people support Shoaib Malik who hasn't done anything life saving for our team off late except for that Afg match in Asia Cup. Against top sides he is a walking wicket
 
Hafeez I mean it. He is a match winner with bat and ball. A few economical overs from him. Can grind the opposition down and apply pressure. Of course his batting when he gets going can win Pakistan matches.
 
Hassan Ali, irrespective of his lack of performances in recent times if he is in rythm he can light up the tournament like he did in CT17 where he was the man of the tournument along with being the best bowler.
 
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