The performance of the pakistani team can best be described as fluctuating and unpredicatable. Before this tournament started, i had a
feeling that our team would lose out badly to the indians and an
improving srilankan side. The first round was just a preliminary stage,
nothing couldve been said at that stage. Come the second round, and
pakistan lost badly to the lankans. The demoralizing thing was the
manner in which they lost. All the strategies went to ground, our
batting collapsed miserably and the bowling showed no penetration.
And hence even the most ardent of the pakistani fans put down the pakis to have any chance against a good indian side. But the pakistanis just dished out an exceptional performance to beat the indians quite
convincingly.
Pakistan could not make it to the finals which is sad, but there have been a few pluses from this tournament which after the poor indian tour are quite refreshing to note. First of all, shoaib malik has shone brightly
as a budding all rounder, his form with both the bat and ball has
significantly improved. Next the form of Razzaq with the ball has also
improved by leaps and bounds. Razzaq was one of our main strike bowlers during his early days and especially in the captaincy of wasim akram was regarded highly. However just before the 2003 world cup he lost form drastically after he got struck on the hand by brett lee in the
test series against australia. He seemed to have recovered his form in this tournament and is amongst the wickets again. Next was the bowling of shabbir which has i think improved to a good deal as well.
The negatives from this tournament are also very disturbing. First the opening spot. In a years time, pakistan has been unable to find a
suitable partner for yasir hameed. There r huge question marks over the consistency of both imran farhat and imran nazir. SEcondly pakistan just cannot seem to overcome their plague of giving extras in a long long time, which is costing them dearly. Our bowlers seem to be bowling well but in patches, sometimes, its shoaib and sami that click while shabbir has an off day, and at other times its the other two that let the team down badly. Its only razzaq and malik that have shown some consistency in this tournament, which is sad, as bowling and especially fast bowling has always been pakistan’s forte. With an unpredictable batting attack, its not good news that our bowling has also
deteriorated after the retirement of waqar and wasim.
Anyways, the asia cup has come to an end, but id like to say one thing,
Pakistan is still not a team thats to be written off. U would not take
an indian or a lankan side lightly but they’re not the sides that would
send shivers down the opposition’s spine. But a pakistani side would
even give the aussie captain a sleepless night, cause u just dont know
what they would dish out next.