Well the Test series is over…pity we lost
Now for the ODIs. Even though the conditions favour Pakistan, we’ve lost a lot of our better ODI players over the last year and the team is inexperienced, so it’ll be close
Also don’t forget 2003 when SAF came back to win the last 3 matches after being 2 down
The plus point is that Shoaib Malik’s fielding positions (and the team’s fielding in general) are better than they were then. That’s about it
Squad 1 Shoaib Malik (capt), 2 Mohammad Yousuf, 3 Younis Khan, 4 Shahid Afridi, 5 Salman Butt, 6 Mohammad Hafeez, 7 Imran Nazir, 8 Kamran Akmal, 9 Misbah-ul-Haq, 10 Mohammad Asif, 11 Umar Gul, 12 Rao Iftikhar Anjum, 13 Yasir Hameed, 14 Abdur Rehman, 15 Sohail Tanvir. (Cricinfo)
There’s not much else–what are we going to do about the openers? I’d think Nazir and Hameed should do the job, with Nazir attacking and Hameed’s more orthodox innings. (Btw, for his own sake, Hameed had better not play well, otherwise the selectors will drop him again) If one/both of them fails, Butt/Hafeez can come in. If Nazir doesn’t play, then Akmal/Malik will have to come up as a pinch-hitting type because we have less chances of a good death-overs finish than we did before without Abdul Razzaq in the team. I know a lot of fans are in typical style discrediting Salman Butt for a few poor performances (and those too in useless T20s) but he should be given a chance in the ODIs if the others fail because he is pretty consistent–the only problem is that being a left-hander makes him a victim of the angle a lot, so hopefully he’s worked on that
Yousuf/Younis would do the job at 3/4
For the middle order, Misbah should be tried for the first ODI–he’s in good limited overs form and if he succeeds, we have a reliable player to bat through the second half of the innings. There’s Shoaib Malik of course who’s in great form, and Akmal (if he’s not batting higher up)–a lot will depend on them
Afridi should be at no. 8. But if he fails once/twice then he should definitely be dropped because he’s gotten complacent with the bat. His spin bowling’s great in recent times but not irreplacable, especially now that the wicket-taking Abdur Rehman is in the team, so he shouldn’t get complacent and just keep throwing away his wicket. Plus there’s Sohail Tanvir who I hear is good with the bat (he’s a batting allrounder domestically) and Abdur Rehman who can also bat.
Then of course there’s Umar Gul and the six-maniac maestro Mohammad Asif, and if one of them isn’t there, Iftikhar Anjum is a more-than-decent tailender
BOWLING OPTIONS; Gul has been bowling brilliantly lately and can start and finish off the innings. Asif, I think, should be either bowled out at the start or open the bowling and bowl a bit in the middle overs to apply the pressure, because he does get hit at the death despite being brilliant/restrictive with the new ball. Same goes for Iftikhar Anjum, a containment bowler, though he should be given short spells throughout the first 1/2 of the innings because he tires easily and if he bowls more than 5 overs on the trot he starts leaking runs. If the other three perform though, I’m not sure there will be room for Anjum. There’s also Sohail Tanvir. If he opens, Gul can bowl one-change which he did well at least in the T20s, I’m not sure how well he’ll do it here. But Tanvir should have good variety because 50-over matches are obviously longer and the batsmen do have time to get a sighter before they get comfortable against his strange action. For slower bowlers we have plenty of choices with Abdur Rehman, Malik, Afridi and Hafeez–Abdur Rehman and Afridi are wicket-takers while Malik and Hafeez are containing bowlers, Malik in the 1st part of the middle overs and Hafeez more towards the death. Afridi/Abdur Rehman/both (whoever’s playing) will need to keep chipping away with wickets because if the South Africans have wickets in hand, there are hitters like Boucher/Kemp/Pollock who can destroy just about any bowling attack in the world. Malik HAS to put himself on!!!
This is what I think the lineup should be
PAKISTAN
Imran Nazir (2nd choice Hafeez/Akmal)
Yasir Hameed (2nd choice Butt)
Younis Khan/Misbah-ul-Haq @4/5 (seeing as Younis is sometimes inconsistent)
Mohammad Yousuf
Shoaib Malik
Kamran Akmal
Shahid Afridi (2nd choice Hafeez who’d go up to 5/6 with Malik and Akmal coming down)
Sohail Tanvir
Abdur Rehman
Umar Gul
Mohammad Asif (2nd choice Anjum who’d go 2/3 spots up)
What do you think?