Another ‘new era’ in cricket

After a less-than-impressive World Cup outing, the Pakistan One-Day International (ODI) team is gearing up for their first challenge under the new leadership of Azhar Ali. The three-match ODI series against Bangladesh starts in Mirpur today and the national team has a stiff task ahead of it against a rejuvenated home side that defied expectations with a quarter-final berth in the World Cup. The Bangladeshis are fancying their chances of notching a long awaited ODI win against their South Asian rivals. The only win for them across all formats against Pakistan was registered in the 1999 World Cup. That historic win earned them the right to play Test cricket but their fortunes against Pakistan have been lacklustre since then. The hosts have assembled a power-packed batting line-up that surprised the leading teams at the World Cup.

For Azhar, the toughest task is to inspire a batting line-up that largely comprises one-dimensional players like Azhar himself, Asad Shafiq, Fawad Alam and Haris Sohail, who are expected to occupy four out of the six batting slots. Other than wicket-keeper batsman Sarfraz Ahmed — expected to open the innings — the rest of the batsmen didn’t feature in the World Cup. Wahab Riaz — the star performer from the mega event — is set to spearhead the bowling attack once again. But all eyes would be on master off-spinner Saeed Ajmal who returns to international cricket after an eight-month hiatus.

The veteran has remodelled his bowling action successfully after clearing the ICC bowling test and now needs to replicate his hard yards in the practice arena in match conditions.

Pakistan did suffer a setback losing the warm-up match against the Bangladesh Cricket Board XI on April 15 but spent good time gathering knowledge about the prevailing conditions. The onus of producing a series win lies with the batsmen and they must turn up and start the new era brightly in conditions that are similar to the ones the players encounter regularly at home.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 17^th,  2015.

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