Saqi against Shoaib Malik would be good change...
But then in the first place - why was he not tried out in the earlier matches..too late to experiment him I guess
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*Originally posted by bitter: *
Saqi against Shoaib Malik would be good change...
But then in the first place - why was he not tried out in the earlier matches..too late to experiment him I guess
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i dont think its late at all, considering the kind of experience saqi has on him. its understandable that he was not able to perform so well in the past but it would be really foolish to totally ignore his presence after being picked up for this series...
it would be better to play him in the place of malik and i hope he would deliver the best out of him inshallah
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*Originally posted by nikhil25: *
i think its easy to see a 2-2 tie, and some close matches and conclude that the teams are even. but there is much more to it. even if we were to say pakistani bowling is on par with indian batting (which i dont think is true), then that leaves pak batting vs. indian bowling, right? well this series has made the pak batting look pretty decent, which is a skewed view. the fact is that the indian bowling line up is quite depleted (harbhajan, agarkar, kumble, nehra OUT, zaheer fresh off injury), and average to begin with. these Pak batsmen are facing indian batsmen and the bottom end bowlers to achieve respectable totals at HOME. i may be biased, but on paper, i think that a healthy indian bowling line-up is slightly "better" than the Pak batting line-up, and the Indian batting lineup is quite a bit better than the Pak bowling.
maybe that wasn't coherent, this may sum up my thoughts more clearly. if Pak batting faced Pak bowling, they would score 150 runs/match. Indians would score 500 vs. indian bowling. yes, these may be exaggerations, but i dont know if they are all that extreme. this is not the Pak squad of a few years ago.
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No one said India's batting is not strong. That would be denying reality. I think you misread my post, it talks about the overall performance and not just one department and in that respect I still stand by my statement. As to all the bowlers you have listed only Harbhajan would have made the difference. As to Nehra, remember if he was playing Pathan wouldnt be, and as Pathan was probably the best Indian bowler in the last two ODI's Nehra's injury may be a blessing in disguise for the Indians.
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*Originally posted by *Zaalim: *
Err, and expose Inzimam to precarious living of one down? That makes me nervous. Yoyo is bound to get his form back, but if he doesn't, better him than Inzimam. No?
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No my batting line up would be Taufeeq and Nazir to open and Yaasir to come in at no 3. Inzi would stay at no 4 with Yoyo providing the finishing power at no 5 that Younis Khan never has and never will.
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*Originally posted by Mr Xtreme: *
No my batting line up would be Taufeeq and Nazir to open and Yaasir to come in at no 3. Inzi would stay at no 4 with Yoyo providing the finishing power at no 5 that Younis Khan never has and never will.
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i dont think its a good idea to play imran nazir for the final decider, simply bcz in my opinion he is another version of afridi but a bit better in a sense that he is much more careful in his shot selection than afridi and at times he could very easily repeat the work of afridi as seen in the series against england.
so instead of imran i think imran farhar and taufeeq umer would just be the option and yasir and rest to follow but kick out moin and let taufeeq do the keeping and shoaib malik should be kicked out as well and replace him with saqi!
:rocketup:
20 million dollars is not going to make pakistan any richer or poor. it may sound a lot for us but not for a nation.
According to your logic then first match was also fixed as if pak won it then it would have won the series.
BTW sachin alone gets $$20mn dollars from worldtel .
Any predictions for next match ??
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*Originally posted by Rehan_Pk: *
i dont think its a good idea to play imran nazir for the final decider, simply bcz in my opinion he is another version of afridi
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He is a much better player than Afridi his range of shots are much more classical. I think a better comparison would be with Sehwag. I wouldn't object to Farhat playing either but I think for ODI a left-right combo plus the extra aggression to compliment Taufeeq's stability would better suited for this occasion.
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*Originally posted by Mr Xtreme: *
He is a much better player than Afridi his range of shots are much more classical. I think a better comparison would be with Sehwag. I wouldn't object to Farhat playing either but I think for ODI a left-right combo plus the extra aggression to compliment Taufeeq's stability would better suited for this occasion.
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Nazir is not in the squad and I don't think they are going to recall him. He is definitely better than Afridi, but than who isn't?
For the first three players in the decider I would go with Taufeeq, Farhat and Yasir and drop Afridi and Younis.
^ but Imran has been out of international cricket for sometime and I don't agree with dropping younis, I think he did a pretty decent job in the last match.
In any case our weakness has been our bowlers i think and not batsmen, atleast in this particular series. Shabbir needs to go out but who would replace him is a million dollar question. I give up :-D
How about Azhar Mehmood? I don't think he is a good player but atleast he will give away less extras :-/
ehsan I know he's not in the squad but that's the decision of the selectors. Unless it is against the law to bring him into the squad the option is still there. I am just stating the team I would put out without being restricted by the selectors opinions.
The Decider: A Clear-Headed Strategy Needed
My Team:
Taufeeq Umar
Imran Nazir/Imran Farhat
Yaasir Hameed
Inzimam ul Haq
Yousuf Youhanna
Abdul Razzaq
Shoaib Malik
Moin Khan
Mohammed Sami
Shoaib Akhtar
Shabbir Ahmed
My Strategy:
QUIT WHINING ABOUT EXTRAS
That's it in a nutshell. The only way we MIGHT bowl less wides or no balls is to change the bowlers. If anyone can suggest better bowlers please list them here. Otherwise let's acknowledge that we are going to have to accept that these dangerous wicket taking bowlers are going to give extras. Complaining about it won't change anything. It hasn't so far so why should it be any different on Wednesday?
What can we change then? Let's also accept that India's batting line up is exceptional. We are going to be hard pushed to restrict them to less than 300 on these wickets whether we use 5 bowlers or 8. So I would kick out Afridi and strengthen the batting line up in order to match their batting power. A stronger batting line up will give us the option to chase down a large score or set a more challenging total for the Indians.
The other player to make way would be Younis Khan. The only no 5 batsmen who consistently fails to finish the innings. Youhanna could do that job perfectly IMO. Not only can he play the support role to calibre bats like Inzi, he is a premium bat in his own right. During the later overs he will be able to keep the momentum instead of relying on Razzaq to come and save the day.
I pretty much agree with Xtreme's pick for the last match. Our bowling is not strong enough for us to 'bowl them out of the match', so we should probably try to match their batting first (to the best of our ability), and then try to find hope in the fact that our bowlers are better than theirs.
Extras:
0b 9lb 19w 9nb 37
Given that 28 of the total number of extra runs came in wides and no-balls, it is a 'bit' high. But I take it as an aberration rather than the rule. With our attacking approach, we can expect our extras to be higher than that of other teams', but I am sure that Shabbir will not have such bad days in every game and the total num of extras will come down to ~20s.
India will lose the final badly - and live up to the name of chokers!!
the pressure will get to them and of course they cant anything bad to such wonderful hosts - after all , the catch word is 'Jeet Lo Dil' not 'Jeet Lo Cup'
Mr. Extreme: i pretty much agree with ur made line-up for the decider. however, i think more changes need to take place.
moin should be kicked out and let younis play (taufeeq be the keeper)
shoaib malik should depart and let saqi take his place.
reason for 1. we have seen that moin is playing with no confidence wotsoever. he is just there with the bat and is not diong anything in favor of pak. so better idea would be to let younis play in his place and in my opinion at this present stage younis is a much better bat than moin who can hold the innings and helps the other end to make runs at somewhat decent run rate.
reason for 2. as imran said so many times, which was to send india a message of playing so many part timers and not getting positive results out of their selection. same reason applies for shoaib, he is certainly a better bat than saqi but in my opinion he is not the class of saqi when comes down to bowl, so we need a specialist bowler who has the past experience and can bowl good and can contain the batters when need the most.
Pak bowlers demand specialist wicketkeepers. This is no match to start experimenting. As for Saqi playing, not a good idea IMO. If we are bowling second with the dew factor, his spin bowling will be useless. You can't get any turn with a wet ball on a damp pitch. If Malik is going to be dropped it would make more sense to replace him with Azhar Mahmood or Naved ul Hasan. I can't really see either of those two restricting the Indian batsmen either so I'd stick with Malik for his explosive batting.
Xtreme, I can't understand this 'slippery ball' business. In the WC teams chasing under lights rarely went past 220, and bowlers never complained of balls slipping from their hands. Is Lahore ultra humid or something?
well, this opens up a whole new problem for the captains - should they bat or bowl first? ganguly said post match that it does not matter because the wicket is playing true. I would agree with that and bat first. A score of 300 is very defendable but of course the way things have been going 320 is better.
Karina lights affect different parts of the world in different ways. In Australia for some reason it doesn't seem to make much difference to the conditions. During the WC in SA the ball was moving all over the place to such an extent that Australia and India wanted the final to be re-arranged. In Pakistan it's a well known fact that there is a lot of dew comes into play during the latter part of the game.
I'm only going by what I saw and that was the bowlers struggling badly to bowl with a wet ball, drying with a cloth etc. If India bowl 2nd on Wednesday and their spinners bowl well under the lights then I'll hold my hands up and say Pak bowlers just weren't good enough. But I don't see how you can bowl spin as effectively with a wet ball.
^Ok, I get it now.
well if the ball slips from Pak bowlers' hands then it will slip from Indian too. That leaves them with only one choice - put up a huge total and bowl and field your heart out. i dont' envy them.
^^ We get sihtload of dew in Spring months. I am surprised they are even having day-night matches.