Its Only Cricket

Latest Score: 4th ODI, Bengaluru: India beat England by 20 runs & leads the 7 ODI series 4-0 with 3 to play.
England in India : Schedule, TV Telecast Channels, Tickets, Squads, Grounds, Records, History, More info.

scrutinizing Pakistan.

Filed under Cricket

Someday, I read somewhere that Mr. Musharraf met Mr. Bush and asked him to outsource professionals from Pakistan rather than India as they can speak better English than we people..

Well, I have never been to Pakistan and haven't met anyone from there either, but I have heard their cricket players receive awards and speak in Hindi. Or Urdu rather. Their speeches certainly gives an idea of their fluency in English. Or the lack of it. It will be very pleasant surprise if they do it for the love of their mother tong. But how much unlikely is that??

Something similar was said when they hired an English man, Bob Wolmer as their cricket coach - How will he convey his tactics to the boys, when he can't speak anything but english and they can understand everything, but english..

Having said all this, Wolmer seems to have found a way to communicate and results are starting to evolve. But you can never be sure with Pakistani team, specially when they play against us. We beat them on their ground in February, then they played well when they came here, drew test series in West indies, and now they have beaten English team comprehensively. Seems like they play well ALTERNATELY. And are prepared to open their guards for us.

But as true professionals, our team should have a look at their strengths and weakness, and plan accordingly --

Strengths :-

1) Passion - Their players may not be as talented as ours, may not have huge records to speak for themselves but level of passion is always more. I mean in their game. Our team will do well do win the initiative and keep pressing from then on.

2) Fast bowling - Every now and then, this small country will come out with some quality fast bowler. We all know about Shoaib Akhtar and his capabilities but some Naved-ul-Rana has come, who has capability to swing the ball, both new and old. Although Md. Sami seems to be struggling, someone called as Md. Asif played the last ODI against England and got some wickets. So boys, watch out for Rookies..... Is Umar Gul coming back??

3) Home Advantage - Well, this is some serious advantage. But being the home team, pressure will be more on them. Lets try to find a few more Laxmipathi Balaji, who won the crowd last time around.

Weakness :-

1) Batting, of course - You can be sure about any aspect of Pakistani cricket, but batting. They have batters like Salman Butt, Younis Khan, Shoaib Malik, Yousuf Youhana(now called as Md. Yousuf as he has changed his religion from Cristianity to Islam), but a very good example of their venerable batting is their last ODI against England. After doing everything right, and being on 153/3 in the 40th over, with less than a run a ball needed, they handed the match to opposition by 6 runs.
I am sure if our team can find a way to negotiate the LAZY GIANT, called Injamam-ul-Haq, rest of the batting will keep quite. One more thing, they might be playing Shahid Afridi at the all-rounders slot.

2) Spinners - Now when every spinner is trying to master the art of bowling "Doosra", someone from Pakistan called Saqlain Maustaq started it. His problem was he could bowl only that, not the conventional off spinners delivery, and was a big flop in Test matches. As of now, we will be having Danish Kaneria to counter. He is a good bowler but then.... I can't remember a single spinner haunting our batsmen in whole series... they rise playing spinners.. they are the best in the whole world when it comes to playing spinners. Is Shane Warne listening??

3) Fielding - Although every international team has improved their fielding quite a lot, I still see a edge over the Pakistani team in this aspect of the game.

Many people wonder which is more entertaining, The Ashes or Indo-Pak series. Well, to me, Australians are lot better than the English team, and winner seems obvious.... but when it comes to India and Pakistan... I am not sure whether GOD will be sure whom to back!!

Its Only Cricket

scrutinizing Pakistan.

Related Articles

Get new posts in email

feeds