4th ODI - After match discussion [GS Analysis]

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Re: 4th ODI - After match discussion [GS Analysis]

I guess none of the PCB and Pakistani management team reads this forum. We have been discussing here to take out Butt and replace him at the top of the order. That didnt happen. Neither was the removal of Yousuf who are both completly out of form. Bringing in Farhat that late in the match was not going to save them and in the end mind games also hurt how much a cricekter can produce in crunch times. Farhat was probably more worried about his place in the team than saving - what seemed by the time he arrived - a lost match.

"Considering their improvement in the one-day format over the last 15 months, they were bizarrely defensive, absurdly suicidal and, often, shockingly reckless." (Cricinfo: Siddhartha Vaidyanathan).

"Pakistan played 75 dot balls and managed just three fours in the first 15, and ultimately, that's where the match was decided." (Cricinfo: S. Rajesh)

If you remember Inzi's word at the start of this series it was that we'll rotate our players so that everyone gets a chance. Even after 4 games, none of the reservers like Faisal Iqbal, Imran Farhat and Yasir Arafat got a decent chance to stake their claim. I would think that after the Karachi century from Faisal, he would have been given a good chance to cement his place, specially with Butt completely out of touch since game 2.

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Re: 4th ODI - After match discussion [GS Analysis]

Dravid thoroughly outclassed Inzamam in the ODI series. Pakistan’s ODI outfit had earned its name as the one who can challenge Australia, before the series the talk was either its 5-0 to Pakistan or 4-1, rarely anyone said its 3-2 to Pakistan, now India is already 3-1, would it be 4-1 India? very likely.

Our batsmen have put us to shame.

ODI 1: Pak’s 1st wicket fell at 50, 2nd at 201.
ODI 2: Pak 1st wicket fell on 0 in 0.2 overs, 68/4 in 13.2 overs
ODI 3: Pak 1st wicket fell on 0 in 0.2 overs, 82/4 in 16.4 overs
ODI 4: Pak down 29/4 in 12.5 overs

Again and again, a big number of wickets lost were because of stupid shot by our batsmen, not really due to “good bowling”, there was good bowling too. Throughout ODI 4 Indian seamers kept moving the ball in and out of batsmen and they fell like flies. I remember once Phil Simmons of WI doing that to our great batting lineup of early 90s.

Indian fielders were on their toes and didn’t let go of any chance ( till atleast Yousuf’s wicket, when I stopped watching). How was our fielding throughout? pathetic, their might have been occasional " :eek: whata catch" performances but overall just :nook: :nook:

Indian “veggie” bowlers kept their line and length in control, didn’t bowl “short”, either it was a bouncer or good length, there were some wayward bowling too but when the batsmen are out of their minds and into turtle shells it doesn’t matter who is bowling where. What do our “gosh khor” bowlers do? short, short, short, short, the only head above all is Mohammed Asif :k:

Overall, congratulations to all Indians fan for the series victory and their team’s wonderful performance :clap:

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Re: 4th ODI - After match discussion [GS Analysis]

Mohammad Yusuf did not play well in this tournament. Much depended on him to give the stability pakistan required in the middle order. For India Yuvaraj was excellent at this position. I think it is here pakistan lost. In the middle overs and in the middle order.

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Re: 4th ODI - After match discussion [GS Analysis]

Time for Malik to be made as Vice captain in ODIs. YK needs to work on his ODI batting mind set and technique on green pitches. I think Faisal Iqbal would have been a better choice instead of YK.

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Re: 4th ODI - After match discussion [GS Analysis]

We should keep out trust in Butt. It isn't good that a guy fails in two or three matches and then u kick him out. What he needs is hard work, i think he can do it if he is helped by a good coach.

Inzi needs to loose weight and get some killer instincts. Can this happen? Reasonable guess is NO. You can't change a person's character when he is 35 or 36. The only answer perhaps is for Woolmer to take the initiative.

And bowling coach like Mushtaq..........makes us look stupid. They ought to hire Waqar i feel.

Is Kamran Akmal good enough to open. I feel he is. If he can stop cutting too close to his body.

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Re: 4th ODI - After match discussion [GS Analysis]

dont blama inzi, its not his fault he played his innings. its not the bowling that cost the game, but the batting. indian batting is good enough to score 160 no mattar what tactics inzi had used.

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Re: 4th ODI - After match discussion [GS Analysis]

First of all Congratz to India for winning the series. :flower1:

I think Pakistan went into a self-destructive pattern. They were defensive from the start of ODI’s. We basically did everything to ruin our batting and bowling abilities by making dead and placid pitches. This ‘new’ Pakistan team emerged from the Australian tour. They did not have the service of Shoaib and other players like Kamran, Butt and Malik were unknown. They made their mark after that. We then played so well in India, went to West Indies and won there too in ODI’s.

When Shoaib made his comeback againt the England everyone knew that going into this series we must play the card of pace, but we did not. Instead, we banked on our batsmen to bail us out. What happened? Those same batsmen had trouble playing straight delieveries during the ODI’s. Imagine how they would have performed overseas like in England? Also, the batting line is inconsistent. Sometimes Afridi is the opener sometimes not. What’s the deal with that? Whenever our big players are on the crease, we are down atleast 3 wickets. You have to play your big players ahead so that they can sail away the pressure and condition. This will give the role players chance to go for big hits, a strategy well managed by India. Tendulkar was awesome in the ODI’s. We might not have seen his best batting but he stayed and played through the pressure and the early conditions, giving players like Yuvraj and Dhoni chance to take the game away from Pakistan.

Our bowling is still great. We have pace from Sami and Shoaib and Asif is a great find indeed. We must play these three along with Rana and try to get some combination going. If Sami was in this series from start, we might be looking at a different result. Also, how long it has been when all these bowlers played together. Sometimes Shoaib is injured others Sami is dropped. Do we actually think we can acomplish anything with this strategy?

This series again proves that Australia is the best and far better than any of these teams. The battle is between 2, 3, 4 places. There were many glitches in Indian game too, when you dismiss the best players of your opponent under 75, you can not allow them to make 260-280+ runs by any means.

A side note would be that we are playing just so many ODI’s these days. Players injured are unable to play the entire series. Pakistan’s big players like Yousuf, Younis and Inzi are unable to make the kind of impact that they are making in the Test series.

Last but not least, Cricket is a funny game. Last time it was Rana in India and how he took 24 wickets and won us the series along with Afridi. This time Rana was medicore to say the least and Afridi injured. Hopefully, this team does some soul searching and find its strength again. :insha:

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Re: 4th ODI - After match discussion [GS Analysis]

Man With a Plan

An excellently articulated article.

Here's what I would add to it:

First of all congratz to India for their victory in the series. Now let's talk about Pak's defeat. To me, toss wasn't really the factor in this game because it was a do or die situation for Pak even before the start of the game. We knew that Butt was under pressure and he did well but I think he needs some serious training since he's getting out in the same manner in the same direction, that's towards the slip quadron. It's incredible to see that Bob Woolmer hasn't sorted out this with Butt. I won't support dropping Butt from the team neither his exclusion from the Karachi ODI because he's young and let him face the challenge. That's the way Aus does and that's the way to go with your youngsters. YOu need to give them enough confidence about themselves and let them roll in their natural way. This should be the approach rather than talking negative about his inclusion as an opener in the team..

Secondly, I am very much against the shuffling of the batting order in the ODIs. We should stick with Kamran Akmal and Butt as openers. Pak was really unlucky that Afridi and Shoaib Akhtar got injured @ the wrong time or the series stat could have been different. OH well, we had a great test series and having a dreadful ODI series but that doesn't mean that Pak team can't do anything. This Pak team has done tremendously well under Inzi and they still have the ability to bounce back may be in Karachi but for sure, in Sri Lanka.

Let's support our team and not forget that this very team beat Eng in the OdIs and the tests and also won the test series against India 1-0. We don't have YOuuf and Younis batting well in the ODIs and that's not a good sign but that doesn't mean we take them out of the one day arena. Let's give them chance to recover and believe me, we'll have a fighting and the most challenging team behind Aus. Not to forget, Rana, Asif, Shoaib Akhtar and Abdur Razzaq along with one specialist medium pacer compile a deadly bowling attack so it's just a matter of time for our batsman to make enough runs to give these bowlers a pray to fetch upon.

Let's take Pak's defeat and see where the team Pak can improve and learn from the mistakes they made.

Umer

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Re: 4th ODI - After match discussion [GS Analysis]

Nice speeches everyone. Some people asked me on MSN why I didn't provide my comments on the 4th ODI. Well, first I didn't see the whole game. And secondly, the comments I had were not G-rated for Gupshup. But they insisted, so, here are my comments.

All political correctness aside, my feelings for the performance of Pakistan team in the last **three **ODI's can be summarized in, yeah you got it, **three **words. And here they are. Ready?

Dur fittay mouN.

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Re: 4th ODI - After match discussion [GS Analysis]

:hehe: :cb:

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Re: 4th ODI - After match discussion [GS Analysis]

I will still blame Inzi for his stupid captaincy. I am not kidding when I say that a strong captain could have made a match out of even 161. When you have two new guys on the crease and ur two wickets down, theres pressure on you, and he removes his strike bowler after just 3 overs?! what kinda mindset does he play with?! is he saving Asif for the last overs?!?! this guy is beyond belief. He hasnt got an iota of cricketing sense in him.

I am positive that had we tried our hearts out, it would atleast be an interesting match to watch. I am sure we could have had a couple more wickets down earlier had Asif been given the chance and pressure was put on the batsmen. A proper captain most probably could have won us the 3rd ODI. Inzi has to go and I sincerely hope he isnt captaining Pakistan in the WC2007.

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Re: 4th ODI - After match discussion [GS Analysis]

His bad back aside, your sincere hopes are not sincere enough :D

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Re: 4th ODI - After match discussion [GS Analysis]

Pak's strength is bowling and India's strength is batting. Without chucker, Asif and Ruzzak had to be extra line controlled but guess that didn't happen. To their credit the formidable Indian batting machine tried their hardest to lose this match but fortunately Raina is too new to have been fully trained in the kamikaze edge of Team India. However the fielding seems to have been good.

I have said this before - India's batting line up is so strong that our only threat is how badly our bowlers screw up. Today they didn't screw up and ergo SERIES WIN BABY!

Sehwag didn't play, Tendulkar didn't score, Dhoni didn't face even 10 balls yet look at this line up - Dravid we know and trust, Yuvraj seems to be growing in potential and practice ..... in spite of all that we see Gambhir play classy shots worthy of a present day Indian batsman...and Raina played some nice shots too.

Which makes one wonder - what is it about dhal rice and channa bhatura that makes for such wave after wave of world class batsman?

PS. Oh, I forgot to mention .... top 5 allrounder this dude? wow!

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Re: 4th ODI - After match discussion [GS Analysis]

Folks lets not be so Harsh on our Pakistani Hosts here,

Remember they have Popeye the Razzaq Man too:D

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Re: 4th ODI - After match discussion [GS Analysis]

ok, I didnt mean out of the team. I just hope he isnt the captain. With that kinda leadership, I dont think we have much of a chance.