All over for Team Pakistan

There is nothing much to write home about Pakistan’s performance – whether it is their batting, bowling or fielding

Mercifully, it’s over. Pakistan’s quest for the ICC World Cup 2023 ended on Saturday when they lost to England in their last round match of the tournament. Green Shirts had to pull off a miraculous feat: they had to win the game by a big margin – in fact, a near impossible one – so as to surpass New Zealand on the points table based on a better net run rate. They instead lost the game by a sizeable 93-run difference, and were thus sent packing from the world contest.

There is nothing much to write home about Team Pakistan’s performance – whether it is their batting, bowling or fielding. Babar Azam’s captaincy too came under intense criticism by experts. Bowling has, over the years, been the spearhead of the team. The current unit too was depending upon speedsters, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Haris Rauf in particular, but both failed to provide the dream start they are known for, in any of the game in the tournament. They rather turned out to be quite pathetic on occasions. To add to that there were no quality spinners as substitute. The batting department terribly lacked the presence of a power hitter, except for opener Fakhar Zaman, who mostly remained on the bench, and Muhammad Iftikhar, who was positioned in the late middle order.

That the team now requires a whole lot of makeover goes without saying. While Babar Azam is highly likely to lose his captaincy, leg spinner Shadab Khan’s place in the team is also in jeopardy. There is a dire need to hunt a few young batters to be groomed in the art of power hitting. The team also badly needs a quality all-rounder like we had in Abdul Razzaq and Azhar Mahmood. So time now to go straight to the dissection table.

The World Cup has, meanwhile, entered the final four stage. New Zealand will face India in the first semi-final in Mumbai on Wednesday while Australia and South Africa will clash in Kolkata a day later.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 13^th, 2023.

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