Pak V SL - 2nd test

zero_zero_seven · July 14, 2009, 9:32pm

I agree with Younis’ assessment about not having test match practice to an extent, but here are some other thoughts I’ve been having today – purely opinion based:

Together with the scheduling problems that dogged them in not having enough test match practice, complacency has played the spoil sport for them.

If you look at their collapses, they all came at times when we/they thought they’d be fine – i.e. at the start of those sessions, the situation wasn’t too challenging – everyone thought they were cruising ahead just fine, and the team ended up being complacent and were caught off-guard.

It’s almost as if they need to be mentally primed to go out there and play well, and they do so well if they’ve had the opportunity to undergo that psychological preparation for some extended time period… e.g. in T20 series… being down and out… they had a few days after their successive losses and they came back strongly for the next matches… similarly in this test match, based on their poor performance on one day, the next day, they came back strongly – but whenever there’s a sudden change in situation from comfortable to not-so-comfortable e.g. a crunch situation during the course of a day’s play due to sudden loss of couple of wickets, it seems like they don’t know what to do now. They don’t have that opportunity for extended mental preparation anymore, and they’re clueless of how to adapt to this new situation. This is exactly what happened to Pakistan’s batting in the last innings of the 1st test and again in their last innings in this match.

I dare say that I’ve figured out the Pak team… but these are patterns that may have some substance in them to be pursued further to identify where the problem lies. To me, it most certainly seems like a psychological problem.

agreed

or just puppets in bookies’ hands