Pakistan once again was shown the exit door of the world cup very early in the tournament. In fact this time, Pakistan had the honor of being the very first team to be eliminated from the world cup. As usual a dismal world cup performance will be followed by a “re vamp” of the entire team, the cricket board and the selection committee.
As a starter Inzamam has already retired from ODIs and has relinquished captaincy from the test side. This will leave a huge void in the batting order and the cricket chiefs of Pakistan will also have to look for a new captain. In my mind this is a decision that needs to be properly thought out. There seems to be huge lobby, mainly in the form of the great Imran Khan, to appoint Younis Khan as Pakistan’s next in charge. Younis has had a good career in Test cricket, but his ODI performance has been extremely ordinary. Younis Khan, some may argue, does not even merit a place in the ODI side. Furthermore, he has scored only 84 runs in the 6 outings he has had as captain. Moreover, in pressure situations Younis Khan has proved to be a complete disaster for Pakistan batting at number 3. Imran khan correctly points out that it is always easier to prevent a collapse rather than rescuing the team out of a collapse. That has been Inzamam’s biggest criticism through out his reign as captain, since he decided to demote him self in the batting order. Imran khan’s point is that the captain should play up front in the line up and lead the team by his example. In Inzamam’s case this was not happening. He was batting at number 5 and by the time he got to the crease Pakistan was usually already on the back foot. But, every body had hope in Inzamam. They knew that Inzi could rescue Pakistan out of the shackles that they had tangled themselves in to.
In Younis, Pakistan will have a captain who will go up the order and bat at number three, granted. But, the idea is not to bat at that position, in fact it is to lead by example. How can one expect a person who averages in the mid 20’s as 1 down against test playing nations in a career spanning 150+ games to lead from the front? What kind of example can you expect him to set? If he continues to play as he has in his career this far, we will soon realize that it is better to have a captain who bats at number 5 and tries to salvage an innings rather than a captain who bats at number three and can neither prevent a collapse nor try to come out of one.
Pakistan XI after the WC:
Yasir Hameed
Imran Nazir
Shoaib Malik (captain)
Mohammad Yousuf
Asim Kamal
Abdul Razzak
Shahid Afridi
Zulqarnain
Rao Iftikhar
Muhammad Asif
Shoaib Akhtar
Salman Butt (12th man).
Asim kamal, only if they want to look among the experienced players, other wise a new talent (Fawad Alam) could also be tested.
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5 comments:
Hello, hello! Welcome to the world of blogging dada! Interesting times for Pakistan and the rest of the World especially since the Carribean is being threatened by spring showers so let's see if this WC goes well or not. But I would like to see how UCC is doing on this blog if that isn't too hard. The weekly emails that we all got after a match were funny so hope they can be posted here.
That being said I think you have mentioned a good point here as to who will fill in the camptain's slot. The way things work in Pakistan is that the older person is usually given the nod despite better and maybe younger prospects. That is a societal problem that has seeped very conveniently in all facets of life here, you and I having different backgrounds will not understand the logic, or lack thereof, of this situation. There to me doesn't seem like a true leader from the current crop I even doubt Shoaib Malik's acumen as a cricketer, he was never a bright bowler but he does bat well but then again how many times has he failed even as a batsman and that too at crucial moment. That question will be raised over and over again for all candidates I think the best bet is to install Yousuf in the same role as Inzi i.e. passive captain and once when the team is ready we have someone charismatic takeover. You have to understand that Pakistan is still going through a development phase, the team has already done away with a lot of the previous cancers, like infighting so we have to be patient and pray for the best.
I agree with the choice of captain. We should have seperate ODI and TEST captains. And Shoaib Malik has to bat one down in ODIs. I would have Butt in the first eleven.
infact i just looked at your team from Dec 2006 and had we played that batting order we would atleast have been in the super 8s.
I'm sorry I meant to say that I doubt Shoaib Malik's acumen as a captain and not a cricketer. He is a fine batsman no doubt but his leading capabilities are in question and the only way to find out is to try I guess but I do not think it is wise to take such risks during a developmental phase for all that has been built up would come to nought. We need someone who can bring some sort of sanity to the proceedings of Pakistan cricket without creating a furore. That being said I am finally glad to see that someone has finally wisened up and included Asim Kamal, he is one player who has lost out to the likes of Faisal Iqbal and Imran Nazir and on baseless grounds. We need him back as the replacement for Inzamam for the 5th position and Asim (not your brother) is ideal.
Shoaib Malik is the right choice for captaincy of Pakistan cricket. I think he has shown good leadership skills with Sialkot- a team which has become a top contender for domestic titles in the last couple of years.
i would never include shoaib akhtar in my team.... granted he has as much talent as the likes of brett lee, or waqar (this is open to debate). his disciplinary problems should result in his exclusion from the team. i checked out the video on the following link,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWumMDnSUFY
and after watching this video, i couldnt bring myself to justify his inclusion in the team
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