Re: Meet the new ODI captain - Azhar Ali
^^^ Ab aap Misbah kee tauheen na karo. Misbah is slow. very slow at the beginning of his inning … or first 30 odd balls he faces. After that, if Misbah survives (do not get out), his strike rate gets better, rather quite good, and that is the reason his overall SR is ~74 (not too bad). On the other hand, Azhar Ali is consistent with his strike rate, and that consistency is on slow side, and that is why his SR is < 65 runs per 100 balls.
Misbah overall SR is better than most Pakistani batsmen, including Hafeez, Shahzad and Younis Khan. Even though none of Pakistani batsmen is worthy of any praise, if Misbah SR was similar to his average SR (~74) from ball one and Misbah was also good in rotating the strike (that increases SR of his partners), then, after taking into account Misbah average of 43, I would consider Misbah a reasonably good ODI batsman.
As for Azhar Ali, he is not even worthy to be called ODi batsman. He would only make team lose ODI matches and nothing else. As Captain, he would give free hand to batsmen who would like to play slow (as slow as Azhar Ali plays), so that these batsmen can make runs increasing their average at the expense of Pakistan, as their tuk tuk would only make Pakistan lose matches.
rab da wasta hai saleem bhai..jan chor do misbah kee. he is retired now. I know you are sort of admiring misbah in this post for a change, but uss kee jan chor do.. wo chala gaya hai.