Re: Breaking News....Shoaib Malik Gets Pakistan Captaincy according to "The Nation"
A team is selected from players playing first class cricket. Once given a chance in test, a player might have good start showing higher test average then first class average, or might have bad start and their test average show lower figure then first class average, nevertheless, slowly over time their test average settles down and converges with their first class averages. (Both test and first class average becomes similar to each other).
Check the average of any player playing test cricket over long period of time and one will see that their test average and first class average is more or less, similar.
Hence first class average of a player is good indication of that player eventual test average too.
Here are first class averages of current Pakistani test cricketers: Check it carefully and see where Shoaib Malik stands and ask yourself that player like Hasan Raza (with average over 50 and 29 centuries, more then even Mohammad Yousuf), why he only got 7 test chances, whereas players having much lower averages got umpteen numbers of chances?
Actually, amongst Pakistani players that also played Test, only 3 have averages in 50s, and 3 in 40s. Rest are below 40s. But only ONE has average even below 30, made much less first class runs and centuries, and still he is in test team. WHY?
Check the figures (first class figures include test runs) and ask yourself that if all is fair in Pakistan? Think and try to answer that the currency in Pakistan Cricket, is it ability and hard work OR Safarish, personal like/dislike and nepotism?
The figures below are true from players record on 17th Apr 2007 (ref: Cricinfo) :)
Average above 50.00 Mohammad Yousuf …Ave: 50.76 (8833 runs, 27 centuries) 75 test Inzamam-ul-Haq:…… Ave: 50.69 (16679 runs, 45 centuries) 118 test Hasan Raza ………..… Ave 50.60 (9260 runs, 29 centuries) 7 test
Averages above 40.00 Younis Khan: ………..Ave 49.93 (7889 runs, 24 centuries) 53 test Imran Farhat: ….…..Ave 42.67 (6625 runs, 17 centuries) 27 test Faisal Iqbal: …………Ave 41.42 (6338 runs, 13 centuries) 18 test
Averages 35 - 40 Salman Butt: ……….. Ave 38.10 (3582 runs, 9 centuries) 14 test Taufeeq Umar: ………Ave 37.90 (5876 runs, 10 centuries) 25 test Asim Kamal: ………....Ave 37.71 (4366 runs, 8 centuries) 12 test Yasir Hameed: …..…Ave 36.12 (5780 runs, 12 centuries) 29 test Bazid Khan: ……….…Ave 35.44 (4431 runs, 8 centuries) 1 test
Averages 30 - 35 Abdul Razzak: ……….Ave 33.47 (4620 runs, 8 centuries) 46 test Mohammad Hafiz: ...Ave 32.93 (4875 runs, 10 centuries) 10 test Shahid Afridi: ………..Ave 32.10 (5105 runs, 12 centuries) 26 test Azhar Mahmood: ….Ave 31.51 (6083 runs, 8 centuries) 21 test Kamran Akmal: ……..Ave 31.49 (5071 runs, 8 centuries) 33 test
Average below 30 Shoaib Malik: ………..Ave 28.47 (2762 runs, 6 centuries) 18 test
Now, if Shoaib Malik justifies a place in test, why not those that have much better figures than him? If Shoaib Malik deserves to be captain of Pakistan team, why not others. Is it because he is Malik while others are not? Are all the above players not Pakistanis and deserve same treatment? What is so special about Shoaib Malik? Please, if anyone knows the answer, enlighten us too.
I say make Hassan Raza the captain. after all the stats are the king and all that matters is batting average, nothing else.