The Pakistan cricket team has failed to show the same character and spirit during the Sri Lanka series that helped it lift the ICC World Twenty20 title. The series loss in both Tests and ODIs has once again forced the Pakistan team’s fervent followers to lose faith in the side’s ability and commitment.
Is it too early to call the T20 triumph a fluke? Does the Pakistan team deserve more international matches to regain its form in the longer versions of the game, or is it time to make some wholesale changes?
This team is such a tosh.
1. Internal groups.
2. Lack of professionalism.
3. Lack of technique. Check the highlights. I need not explain my point here.
5. Winning a Pajama WC recently made our team as unbeatable only to be brought down to earth crashing.
1) We should have separate teams for Tests and ODIs and T20s.
2) Need to sort out the Opening Pair issue – outstanding for far too long.
3) For our future, we need to give “only” younger talent (15-23 years) the chance to play in the A side. This is so that the younger players waiting to play for Pak team can prove their skills, technique and mental strength at the international stage. Fawad Alam and Umar Akmal have proved it and moved up already.
Happy to see some good “young” talent playing in our A team currently in Sri Lanka, including: Sheharyar Ghani, Umar Amin, Azhar Ali and Sarfaraz (wk).
Other young batsmen who should be given the chance in the A side, include: Haris Sohail, Azeem Ghumman, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Awais Zia, Fawad Hussain, Abid Ali, Naved Yasin, Ali Asad, Ahmed Shehzad and Khalid Latif.
All of them are good batsmen, but we need to find / identify the “great ones’ from such lists by giving these guys the opportunity to play in the A side / give them international first class exposure / honing their skills further through proper coaching.
4) I am sure the same can be done for talented bowlers – I have not made my list of young probables for that yet!
Mr. Younus, cowards die many times, but a brave man only dies once – like Mr. Asif Iqbal after India tour.
How many more lost series you want??
Winning team always demand consistent team players in every match and not the players with one in ten matches.
Do you think this performance from the champs is worthwhile to be discussed? What the heck is going wrong with these guys having bat & ball in their hands and lot of broken promises in heart.
There is nothing seriously wrong with the boys. They only lack consistency and professionalism; and who is resposible to infuse professionalism…the adminstration. They should be overhauled. Being a test cricketer alone does’nt qualify one to be a good administrator. And then Ijaz Butt was never a good cricketer either.
Its a game – winning and losing is part of it. But Pakistan cricket has always been inconsistent; I seriously think it is not about practice or selection process but taking the game seriously. Our cricketers don’t treat the game as their careers and are least bothered about the results – the hunger to win or to perform is just not there. They have a casual attitude towards the game and i must add its not only the crickets but also the management which has taken the game and its fans and their position for granted.
And i completely disagree that we have loads of “natural talent” blah blah as if we are creatures from some other planet. Other teams work hard and they are equally talented and some perhaps more.
No doubt Pakistan is a world champ and I agree with all the above comments that it’s a matter of time and hard luck to Pakistan. Nevertheless Pakistan cricketers should now take this matter seriously. They must rely on two things; one that they are the best team in the world and second they must know the importance of the hard work. The more hard work, the more luckier you become. So keep on concentrating and keep on watching glorious moments of T-20 world cup finals.
It was bound to happen sooner or later. The Pak team was in a bad shape before the T20, but was lucky to win all the crucial (required) matches. It has won the T20 championship but their real worth is coming out now. The SL team is definitely better and it has amply demosntrated that. It was an unfortunate day for the SL to loose the finals, otherwise they were the strongest team throughout the tournament.
The 1992 WC championship by Pak and the 1983 WC win by India were also won the same way. It is thrilling to see the underdogs win, but a poor sight to see them loose immediately afterwards. They unfortunately cannot carry on from there.
A lot has been said about the dismal performance of our team in Srilanka. It is astonishing that Younis Khan has been blamed for the defeat. No one has bothered to look at the performance of some of the senior members of our team. I am sure that all of them will get away with it. I think it is the time that our cricket board should punish some of the senior players for their underperformance. Changing the captain will not do any kind of good to the team. Younis Khan should be given time and complete authority over the selection of the team. The team discipline can then be maintained. If some of the senior pros violate the discipline they should be dropped permanently so that the same incidents should not happen again.
We should take a few lessons from the Australian Cricket Board. Australia has been desperate to find match winners after the retirement of McGrath, Warne, Hayden and Gilchrist. The only genuine match winner they had was Symonds, but for the breach of discipline he has been dropped. Clearly the Aussies have been missing him in the Ashes but for them discipline is of prime importance.
As regards the leadership abilities of Younis Khan, we must not forget that he was nominated the captain of the dream team of the recently concluded T20 world cup. All of us have seen that our team came back after they were dimissed for 90 runs during the second test match in Srilanka. It was Younis Khan’s leadership skills which instilled in the team the will to comeback from a hopeless situation. This was stated by Fawad Alam in his interview after he got hundred on debut. He (Younis) came to bowl at a time when we needed wickets and he delivered.
Please do not blame Younis for what happened in Sri Lanka.
As Pakistanis we seem to always evade rationality. It is only in an instant that we love our country, our team and everything that revolves around it. As soon as that instant (World T20) perishes and the team hits a low, the fans are the ones that are hit hard, right in the kisser.
We not only have to watch the games but also hear the critics from across the world to mock each decision made and every consequence that is suffered.
However, as Pakistanis we tend to look at life with a certain sense of optimism and therefore, I believe that it is about time that we create a solid foundation by fixing the domestic cricket and also choosing officials that are logical rather than impractical or jazbati.
Battered chimps, you mean.
These days watching Pakistan cricket is like having plastic fruit. It promises so much but delivers shockingly bad results. Its hard to imagine that just a few weeks ago we were in the promised land (the world cup final) and this time the promises were kept. Since then, it has been a down hill slide to say the least. Batting collapses, fielding mistakes and tactical errors have led to a deterioration of trust in the fact that our team can deliver. What is interesting is that somehow we are finding it strange that green shirts have not been able to deliver. They have been poorer wearing white. The writing was on the wall for the Sri Lanka series.
Seaming wickets which start to turn later, did we seriously expect our batting line up to deliver? I did not. What I did expect is discipline and concentration. I believe our esteemed cricketers have gotten it wrong on two counts. Firstly they have confused flamboyance with stupidity and secondly they have no idea what an opener is supposed to do. Tactical errors have compounded the misery which has been this tour. Barring an internal squabbles which maybe present in the team the likely source of the trouble has to be morale. The test defeats have left the team low on confidence.
I do believe that more match practice is needed by the team, also patience by the audience and administrators is essential in rebuilding morale.
“Time to make a wholesale Change” Change is one thing we all are too found of as a nation.But ironically we make too many changes in cricket. We lack development of the players and then consistency. We all know that since Amir Sohail and Saeed Anwer, we have not had a proper oppening pair. And on top of that, one particular individual is not given enough time at a particular position. We don’t have adequate training and development of the players at early stage and domestic cricket does not give the experience and right techniques required to represent on the international platform. I believe we have lots and lots of talent but PCB has to be revamped all together so that fresh minds with fresh techniques and experience of the old house will collaborate to be the right recipe for us to stay consistent and competitive with other nations.
It is my personal belief that there is a genuine need for overhauling the selection process especially due to the fact that we “handed” over a number of matches to the Sri Lankans after getting a stranglehold. The bowlers now need a bowling coach more than ever because it was a more of a bowling failure than batting failure on a number of occasion that resulted in embarrassing losses for the Pakistani team.
We should provide them more international matches.
We have a brilliant team it is just matter of time.
Pakistan team needs no change at the moment. All they need is a change in their attitude towards their game. Look at Lankan players, they die to win the game like they have no other option. Pakistan batting collapsed through all tests and ODIs and could’nt even win the last ODI with eight proper batsmen playing in the side. All that is needed for the betterment is a correct and consistent batting order and professionalism in the field. Consider playing cricket as you are doing a job.
It’s really sad we make demi gods out of young men who play for subcontinent teams.
The Pakistan team played a better team and lost, and it is unfortunate they lost both series. Happens. get over it. With such great talent and also available on the bench, when will we give them a second chance? Criticise them yes, but don’t make this a case of no hope, no return for talented cricketers.
Just because our Indian team played well in last 18 months, they get a similar status. Is it then correct to allow them the “privilege ” to evade WADA on specious grounds? This is really the limit ! They call themselves champs, but are behaving like spoilt youngsters! We the fans in the sub continent across countries spoil them so much they think they can walk on water.
Khel hai , khelne do and haar jeet is part of all sports.
Let us NOT rubbish a team which is again coming together, slowly. They need time and Akaml and other such guys WILL deliver soon enough for you.
Well i don’t agree that we need to make drastic changes to the team. Our team has not played international matches for a long time. We should give them a chance. Secondly we must not forget that our batsman lack the ability to play to green pitches like those in Sri Lanka.The opposition knew about our weakness and they exploited it. Younis Khan is correct when he says that are domestic structure is flawed, our players eradicate their mistakes when they come on the international scene, on the other hand in teams like Australia you make it to the international team when you are a complete player. We need to improve our domestic structure to produce world class players, we simply cannot rely on raw talent.
It would be a mistake to compare the T20 form with the longer versions of the game.
Clearly, the team has not played a lot of one day and test cricket in the last 18 months and needs more matches.
However, more importantly, it is the quality of the batting order that needs to be seriously addressed. The absence of a reliable opening pair and mediocre performances by Misbah and Shoaib Malik (with the exception of one good innings) are the primary reasons for the recent batting meltdown in Sri Lanka.
Finding consistently performing top batsmen must be a priority for the board.
Why is it that India (with similar wicket conditions) can produce a slew of world-class batsmen while Pakistan barely manages to find one or two at the most??
The Board would do well to invest in a world-class batting coach.
well its not new to pakistan team. we give them lot of honor and respect after winning T20 title, but the same will turn into harshness and rudeness after clean sweep by Sri Lanka in home series.
its a fact that we have been out from international cricket since long, recently they win the world biggest title of T20, i thought this victory help them to gain confidence and expertise. T20 helps them to boost up the morale of all players. i have seen may players in Lanka series that performed very well in T20 but here they are totally failed specially Shahid Afridi. i my self thinks that PCB have to make some major changes in national team. frankly speaking, there is no space of pakistani skipper Younis Khan and Shoaib Malik in the team.
I just would like to say that:
Pakistan is the champion of current age cricket that no one could deny, now the current situation, its the luck that is not in our side, every pride hath a fall, its not a big thing, we expect them to struggle much better and to encourage the representatives of our country, they are the ones who raised the name in that bad situation, luck doesn’t take you every time, hope everything would be good in future, Pakistan Zindabad.
Yes its time to make some wholesale changes… i am in a big favour of separate team for Test and ODIs.
T20 is different game altogether not much technique required in it… the basic reason of recent defeats in test and odi’s what i think is most of the Pakistani players have no temperament n technique…and the second main reason what i seen is the selection or may be some of a players are not in a mood to perform. In test you must have a specialist opener, a make-shift opener is not the solution..
in the end we must admit that Sri Lankan played much better cricket than us.
Its time for overhaul of domestic cricket structure. Keeping in mind that Pakistan will be shunned from international cricket, we should double our efforts to rebuild our domestic cricket. Take example from South Africa during their blockade days.