KARACHI:
I want to begin by congratulating the Pakistani cricket team for their win against the West Indies in the second test match. The entire team displayed commendable effort, however, Shaheen Afridi and Fawad Alam deserve individual praise for their consistent performance. Shaheen Afridi’s fast bowling got him ten wickets in the match. The other bowlers namely Nauman Ali, Hassan Ali, and Muhammad Abbas also deserve a pat on the back for their impressive bowling that kept piling pressure on the West Indies batsmen.
Fawad Alam stood out yet again. Given his performances, it is shocking that he was ignored for years for a slot on the national team. It is also a lesson for the selectors who ignored him to focus on merit instead of personal preferences. Besides celebrating the recent win, the team management must also introspect on the reasons as to why the team performed poorly in other series. An important reason for our poor performances is sloppy fielding and unreliable batting. Both fielding and batting have been in a defective state for years now. Our batting lineup is as unreliable as ever. When they start losing wickets, the entire lineup collapses like a street-level team. Similarly, our fielding is poor at best. In the first test match against the West Indies, our batting failed miserably. Our bowling allowed us to almost snatch a win. However, dropping three catches of the last two batsmen while defending a meager total of 168 was enough for the opponents to manage the remaining 19 runs to win the match.
I hope that the team management learns from these mistakes and concentrates on improving our team’s fielding and batting capabilities. Most importantly, choices must be made based on merit. This will provide opportunities for the best and most talented players across the country.
Raja Shafaatullah
Islamabad
Published in The Express Tribune, August 27th, 2021.
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