Fans are disturbed by the performance of our cricket players in ICC World Cup 2023. They also want the team to score a win but every time our players leaves us disappointing to the core. Although they have the potential within but there’s something lacking in our cricket team which needs to be fixed.
Here, I have gathered my analysis which I think can help our cricket board learn better.
World Class Pacers Seem Ordinary
Pakistan just suffered a massive blow after their poor defeat to Afghanistan. It is the third loss in a row after the two initial match wins. Their most Lethal bowler star, Naseem Shah, is currently ruled out because of a shoulder injury.
The Eagle Shaheen Shah Afridi is also quite out of his usual form since he is failing to take any early wickets in the initial overs of the match. His performance was 2-36 against arch-rivals India and 5-54 against mighty Australia. In the initial matches with Sri Lanka and Netherlands, he only managed to get 2 wickets at a cost of 103 runs.
Haris Rauf, the speed-gun, has cost 286 runs in five matches and got only eight wickets, while on the other hand, spinners have lacked the sparking deliveries on the slow and turning pitches of India.
Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Usama Mir, and Iftikhar Ahmed have only six wickets in five games, giving out 502 runs in total.
Lack of Captaincy and Leadership
Pakistan team captain Babar Azam– one of the top batsmen in the World of white ball cricket — has only managed to score two fifties at the World Cup. Moreover, his captaincy is being questioned a lot, and he is facing many accusations of lacking aggressive gameplay in field settings.
The captaincy and decision-making look not at all up to the mark and extremely defensive up till now.
The media is accusing Babar Azam of selecting and favoring his friends to play in the team.
“As far as captaincy is concerned, I do not have much pressure upon me or my batting. I try to give my best in batting performance,”
the captain quoted after Monday’s defeat to Afghanistan.
Management Issues
It is one of the main reasons for the downfall as there have been some unsettling changes in the Pakistan Cricket Board set-up, and about three chairmen have been changed in the past year, which proved inefficient planning for the Cricket World Cup 2023.
The former chairman Najam Sethi put Mickey Arthur as team director, but he also kept hold on to his Derbyshire county job in England.
Directing and giving instructions out to the team from the UK, the media censured him as a “Zoom coach.”
“You were not able to find a coach, and since you liked foreign ones so much you hired an online coach. We change our system frequently, and that is showing in our performance in the World Cup,”
says the Pakistani legend Wasim Akram.
Some of the Pakistan officials have also been criticized for failing to manage the workload of their pacers since Naseem Shah and Shaheen Shah Afridi playing all three formats.
Naseem Shah’s most obvious replacements were Ihsanullah and Mohammad Hasnain, who were also unfit, forcing the Pakistani team to finally select Hasan Ali, who has been out of form for quite a while now.
Lack of Strategy and Planning
The Pakistan Batting seems to be very timid and defensive. Batsmen are not good at strike rotation during middle overs.
They are afraid and not willing to take risks at the crucial points in the game, leaving it for a couple of lower-order batsmen to handle all the risk, which builds high pressure on them, and they panic.
The fielding department has never been their strength; the amount of misfield has caused Pakistan a lot of damage. The fielding is below average for an International tournament.
The top-class bowling is not striking anymore, no quality spinners in the team. The pitches of India prove to be a lethal ground for spinners, but nothing seems to be going well for team Pakistan.
No player from the team is suitable for ODI captaincy. This same side can win mostly in T20s format, but they just don’t have a 50-over game mindset.
Unexperienced Indian grounds
Due to complex political relations between the two nations, the sport has been compromised. The last time Pakistan traveled to India was in 2016, which shows us that most Pakistani players do not have experience of playing on Indian pitches.
Moreover, the hostile reaction from the Indian crowd in the India VS Pakistan match was absolutely disgusting. Seems like it turned the morale of players very low.
Waiting for a miracle
The World Cup dream of Pakistan seems very unfortunate till here, but the fans are still waiting for a miracle to happen and want somehow to get their team qualified for the semi-finals.
The Green Shirts will now play South Africa, Bangladesh, New Zealand, and England. All these matches are now must-win for them if they want to qualify for the semis and save the sacred dream of winning the cup for their country and people.
It is surprising to see how Pakistan has gone down from a world-class team to an ordinary and unimpressed side in this tournament. But we wish them good luck for their upcoming matches and hope they will make a strong comeback.
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