The match is over, the tournament is not

Pakistan are still in the race so I will keep supporting them


Creative: Omer Asim/Rashid Latif February 21, 2015
Sohail Khan (C) celebrates dismissing West Indies' batsman Dwayne Smith (L) during their Cricket World Cup match in Christchurch, February 21, 2015. PHOTO: REUTERS

Pakistan’s decimation at the hands of West Indies leaves us on the brink of elimination from the World Cup but we are not here for the first time, nor for the last.

Our planning, strategy and execution; everything is falling apart right now and we need to gather our thoughts because it will only get tougher from now on after two back-to-back defeats.

In my view, the think tank missed a trick by not going in with an extra seamer on a pitch which had dry brown grass as it assisted the quicker bowlers with seam movement. Rahat Ali should have been brought in to replace Yasir Shah.



We started well with Muhammad Irfan and Sohail Khan, putting our opponents on the back-foot but we did not take the chances that came our way.

Marlon Samuels and Darren Bravo were struggling against the quicks but then spinners were brought on and it allowed them to come back into the game.

If we had an extra seamer, Wahab Riaz and Rahat would have supported the opening bowlers well and Pakistan could have bowled out West Indies inside 200.

As the innings went on, Pakistan continued losing their grip on the tie and the match was decided in 10 crucial overs — the last five overs of the West Indies innings and the first five of ours.



Andre Russell’s power-hitting left us shell-shocked and we never really recovered from there. Once our batting started, we were still coming to terms with how the balance had shifted with that onslaught and our batsmen played shots under-pressure, which brought about their demise.

Our top-order panicked and from there on it was a mere formality. West Indies utilised the conditions perfectly and bowled well, so credit to them for doing the basics right.

Change must come in the shape of specialist wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed, and Younus Khan must make way. You cannot persist with Umar Akmal behind the stumps, since he does not even have the proper etiquettes of wicketkeeping as he changes his gloves every now and then; and that is criminal. I would put the blame on the management who are using Akmal in that role and not the player.

However, what is stopping me from criticising the team a lot are the spates of suspension and injuries that we have suffered.

Pakistan are still in the race so I will keep supporting them and nothing will be gained from criticising them for the sake of criticism.

There are reasons, and reasons in abundance, for us being in this situation but our administrators turn a blind eye to them. The biggest of them is the menace of betting, which has prevailed in our system and needs to be eradicated.

Things have not gone worse suddenly, and instead our cricket has been slowly poisoned for the past 20 years.

Good sincere players like Yasir Hameed, who averages close to 37 in ODIs but last played in 2007,  have been thrown out of the team, whereas below-average players such as Imran Nazir, who averages 24, and Imran Farhat, who averages 30, are preferred.

Yasir would have been a 10,000-run player but he was dropped because he refused to be part of a corrupt system.

There is still a while to go before our next match, and the team now needs to gather itself because for them, the knockout stages begin now and every match is do-or-die.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 22nd, 2015.

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COMMENTS (1)

Asif | 9 years ago | Reply Pakistan will defeat Afghanistan or other unknown team (maybe kids in diaper team) and all of the Pakistan will go into collective amnesia with GEO tv flooding the space with "Geo to aehseh". Meanwhile, whole world will be laughing at us. Congratulations .... bet-you this team will be back again for the next tournament. Some are pocketing good money for keeping these low lives.
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