Because of brainless display. For example: I predicted a ball before Imam’s stumping against Afghanistan that he will get out. Mainly because he had played 5 dot balls in that over. He had that look on his face that he was under severe pressure and he is about to quit. We play a lot of stupid cricket and choke in crunch moments. Lack of basic cricketing sense you can say.
And on the other hand, Babar’s inning vs NZ was the best I have ever seen from a Pak bat. The lad didn’t quit and battled all the way. That inning was a rare, very rare to come from a Pakistani batsman.
This thought process is mother of all batting problems. Why you think that being tied down and not rotating strike is stupid, rather not incapability. Babar’s batting was brilliant because of the balance between defense, rotation & boundary. THAT combination not because of his intelligence only, rather his batting skills.
I have seen almost every PAK poster thinks not rotating (or not taking singles) is lack of intent or intelligence or willingness which is the biggest mistake. Taking singles need all round batting skills, placements, soft touches and proper manoeuvring ability to place in gaps. In ODI games there are 4/5 “holes” in inner circle & 5/4 “plugs” to stop singles - on top of that bowlers bowl on negative length, line and Captain will place 9 fielders according to batsman.
Most PAK batsmen are limited with their shot making range, can easily be blocked from rotating strike because of lack of options (to manoeuvre the ball in gaps), poor on back foot hence can easily be kept in check with short of length staff, very little off side game ...... all these results into a suffocating situation and outcome is a desperate release shot - something Imam tried.
Babar is the most complete batsman by some margin & Haris is also good - these two can rotate strike once in a good partnership; Sarfraz is not technically sound but quite intelligent & busy - when in good touch can manoeuvre spinners well. In form Umar was easily better than Babar (but didn’t have the focus to make it a big innings), because along with rotating ability he could blast as well.
Rest are too limited or hack - needs to play low percentage shots to keep scoring. This is the main reason you’ll see Fakhar, Imam or Asif often struggles to maintain SR after some times in middle when it should be opposite - a set batsman should be more comfortable & fluent in middle .... result too many 30s & 40s. When he was in form (& young), MoHa could also rotate and he had God gifted timing, but pea size heart, so he choked almost always and now he is 5 years obsolete- only a board like PCB can carry such zombies expecting that some day he’ll score a big one ... that too batting first.
Rather than being too harsh, I find most PAK fans extreme in both ends - reason being unrealistic expectations or lack of understanding the game. This is a damn average PAK side which has punched well above weight to be in the tournament till 9th game, which I think is per for them - those who had higher expectations often too critical (out of frustration), other group thinks too high about the “natural talent” of the team (players), hence it often ends in too much false bravado - but once you set yourself too high in that effort, there is one way of fall back ..... keep building on the “talent” stand.
But, there are definitely few posters here who has a very good idea of where PCT & PAK cricket stands - they are quite realistic ....... my efforts has been to increase the size of this middle group.
