In a recent (on going) ABN-AMRO Bank tourney, following are the top wicket takers (criteria : 9+ wickets)
Junaid Zia might make a come back if our youngsters in Khalil, Anjum don’t show a better performance. Junaid’s SR is good but economy is bad.
Mazhar Ali looks good with Ave of 12.5 run per wicket, SR of 20.4 and ecnomoy also good! :k:
Mohammad Irshad, our next Shoaib/Sami (names used only for pace comparison) has 13.72 ave, good strike rate, okay ECONO.
Riaz Afridi, Saeed Ajmal and Sarfaraz Ahmed also look good with Sarfaraz having upper hand in ECONO and AVE.
Shahid Nazir has played for Pakistan before, he was not a “GREAT” bowler, I believe he averaged around 33 in ODIs, but unfortunately that was time of Shoaib Akhtar and M Sami around the duo Ws, so didn’t last long… he might come back too, but he is 27 years old, just in case “age matters”.
Yasir Arafat has played 2 ODIs, getting 2/65.
Name Mat O M R W Ave Best 4w 5w SR Econ Team
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Mohammad Irshad 4 36 0 151 11 13.72 4-33 1 - 19.6 4.19 MULTAN-R
Junaid Zia 4 30 1 177 11 16.09 5-53 1 1 16.3 5.90 LAHORE-RW
Shahid Nazir 5 40.4 6 126 11 11.45 5-30 - 1 22.1 3.09 FSLBD-R
Mazhar Ali 4 34 1 125 10 12.50 5-20 - 1 20.4 3.67 HYD-R
Yasir Arafat 5 43 2 222 10 22.20 3-40 - - 25.8 5.16 RAWAL-R
Riaz Afridi 5 31 6 143 9 15.88 3-45 - - 20.6 4.61 PESH-R
Saeed Ajmal 5 30.1 2 136 9 15.11 3-14 - - 20.1 4.50 FSLBD-R
Sarfraz Ahmed 5 33.5 3 103 9 11.44 3-20 - - 22.5 3.04 SIALKOT-R
Batting:
Rafatullah scored highest runs in the tourney with an average of 52.4 with SR of 82.38 with 1 century, 2 50s!
Misbahul Haq as second highest scorer with an average of 70.33, SR of 103.43. He scored one century. This guy keeps knocking on the door, but I guess PCB does not like him for some reason.
Ashfaq Ahmed scored total of 205 @ average of 51.25 and SR of 107.32, with one century!
Saeed bin Nasir played @ average of 39 @ 71.42 SR.
Also can be seen is Faisal Athar who got a chance to play only ONE ODI and then got dumped, shabash PCB !
The oneday competition is not a good gauge of judging domestic talent. Its the four day first class competition a la Patrons Trophy and Quaid-e-Azam Trophy that count.
I hope the current structure will work, but we also need a talent hunt program as India had on an urgent level.
I strongly believe that we need to have batting and bowling camps in all the major cities of Pakistan. That includes Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Pindi, Hyderabad, Quetta, Multan, Faisalabad, Sialkot and Abbotabad. We should have these camps on seperate times and should have atleast two former reknowned bowlers or batsmen to check the players. We should invite all the wannabes bowlers and batsmen from that city and vicinity to show their talents. These camps should last from 10 to 15 days.
And as we select 5 to 10 players from each camp, they should join Pakistan Cricket academy for further tests and grooming. Out of those we will keep the best cream in Academy and the rest will be sent to the regional teams to give them atleast 3 chances and further training. If they perform well they can climb to Pak under 19 and then Pak A and B teams. There must be atleast 3 to 5 players that will have extra ordinary talent, those can have special training in the academy under the coaching of greats, whose special assignment would be to polish the player for intl cricket and remove any technical flaws and weakness.
To facilitate this we need good regional academy buildings and grounds (or flourish the existing infrastructure) in each centre. Where players can live, eat healthy food, exercise to get fitness that is required on Inlt level and do practice 5 days a week. This could be a Rs. 2 to 3 corer project. But it will pay off very soon.
I would say within 8 to 12 months we will be a different cricket nation once again. With lots of potential and backups.
well this only prove that there is not much done the avg is question is can you actually maintain this avg season after season?
like Hasan Raza has done in Patron’s trophy seasons or Misbah-ul-Haq and many others? and yet they are not called upon for a good time to perform.
Well i dont remember who said this but its ought to be true..
if a domestic player who has an avg of 40+ always minus 5-7 from his avg, why? thanks to our domestic platform and we call know.
I hope the idea of Saeed Anwar is implemented, use of Matting wickets 2-4 matches per domestic team.
What I'd like to see is Hasan Raza and Faisal Iqbal make it to the national team. I don't know why these two are being ignored. If you look at Pak/Aus test series in Sharjah in 2002, you'll see that they performed well. Yet, they were unceremoniously dumped after the series..
I think Raza is a very wristy player and could become Pakistan's Laxman. Now that'd be a sight! Maybe we should urge Woolmer to take a look at these two because PCB seems to have something against them.
If your domestic system will give me bowlers like Fazl-E-Akbar and Junaid Zia, then I suggest you just abolish the system altogether. Wasim shmuck Bari likes to pick players on statistics and never attends a freakin' domestic game. No wonder we have bowlers like Khalil and Arshad in the side.
^ exactly, sadly it is not a good reflection of talent. Most of our gems were spotted out of the blue like Wasim and Inzi were spotted in random net sessions and never even had much domestic experience. Also, a statistic just as important as averages, is age. No point in giving test debuts to 26 year old fast bowlers or 30 year old batsmen.
I agree! Such is the sorry state of affaires and all they have is the ‘band-aid’ solutions one after the other.
game bro, Junaid Zia is the victim of ‘Papa’s boy’ in the side.
His talent is worth a watch and blossoming all the time. He’s being ‘wasted’ due to ‘Purchee’ allegations and very disrespecting remarks during his Under 19 tour of India and few matches at home against India’s under 19. (accusations at such a young age - kaunsa baap burdhasht keray ga)
(I suspect that his Dad might not favor his participation in the national team)
(I liked what Tauqeer Zia did for Pakistan cricket in all those years golden years)
If handled properly in all sincerity Junaid zia would have been what Irfan is for India. (They both started their 1st class International cricket from the same match)
Only if Junaid Zia is allowed to flourish hassle free, he has the talent and nag for good judgment. Plus he’s well educated and perhaps understand the changing techniques of the game more than any player.
We desperately require bowlers in today's situation. Good comments. I saw Riaz Afridi's bowling but he chucks though, a little probably and that's why he perhaps could not make the team. His arm does not go straight in bowling and probably he uses his wrist action. Other bowlers like Muhammad Irshad and Yasir Arafat are hype and fabulous bowlers. Batting, at the moment, may be waited while we are still experimenting with several openers we have bunch of openers involving in our team and middle order amongst no spot left.
j/k
question is can you actually maintain this avg season after season?