Re: 1st test...Pak Vs India at Mohali
It looks to me that Pakistan's current team is of no match to India in at least test matches. Without Shoaib Akhtar bowling has no fire power to dismiss India twice in a test match. It will be no wonder Pakistan will be whitewashed in the series. Repeated mistakes are being made in team selection. Pakistan should go into match with specialist bowlers not the allrounders who are little there little here which is no use in test cricket. At test level a real all rounder is the one who is either specialist bowler or batsmen like Imran, Hadlee, Kapil, Botham, Wasim all were quality bowlers who can also bat well. Currently Pollock is such an all rounder. Kallis is also an all rounder who is an outstanding batsman but can also bowl well. India now have at least Pathan at this level who is a qaulity bowler and also can bat well. But if you compare with ours like Abdur Razzaq and Rana they have no speciality in either batsmanship or bowling at test level but still they are being pesisted and in this way chance is not given to the deserving players. Shahid Nazir performed exceptionally well in domestic cricket . took about 50 wickets at ~13 runs per wicket but was not slected for the series. In the name of continuity same mistakes have been made again and again.
But again the whole turning point was the Taufeeqs drop and let me tell you that you a re not a WORLD CLASS player if you drop something as easy as that. i mean what was Taufeeq expecting when he was standiing there in the slip. Was he expecting the ball to slowly float to him. i mean come on. The ball travelled directly to him and man that dropped catch must have stung the morale of the entire team. When I heard the commentator he said edged and hes out then no wait taufeeq has dropped it. That was one of the sickest feelings in the world.I knew that after that point sewag would tear us apart and boy has he ever.
I also think that maybe its a good think we have done all the stupid mistakes in the 1st test so that we can play more with ihtiaat in the next remaining test matches, and avoid doing the stupid mistakes that we did in this one.
I called Afridi up an hour ago, and he said there are rumours that Shoiab Akhtar will be playing the 2nd test match. I asked him how, and he said that there were some phonecalls going on in the other room, and that players were talkin about it. He is totally fit now, and its up to PCB to send him now, and thats what they are going to do now. But IT IS NOT CONFIRMED. He also said that he will be included in the 2nd test match, since bob spoke to him, more i cant tell at this stage.
Lets see what happens
sigh