Re: Pakistan Opening Crisis and Possibilities
Yasir Hameed started off with the awesome career and I think he should have a chance.
Yes you are correct Yasir Hameed starting his test career with awesome display against the mighty Bangladesh on the flat tracks of Pakistan. People suddenly became excited as to how brilliant player Pakistan has managed to find and will help improve the batting lineup. No doubt he is very exciting to watch when he gets going and has full array of shots but I still feel that he wouldn’t make much difference to the current problems as he has the same technical flaws in his batting as Butt and Farhat. I am not sure how much competitive cricket he has played recently and even if he is recalled back into the side, as a result of this he may not be able to contribute much to the team.
When I first saw Yasir Hameed I reserved my judgement as to how good he really was as i wanted to see him against a decent bowling attack on a surface or environment which is not famaliar with and after having seen him against Australia he looked so awful and had no answer to the moving ball.
In fact he looked more awful then the likes of Butt and Farhat. I am afraid he is not the solution to the current or the long term batting problems facing Pakistan.
When you question Pakistan player abilities and start critising them or the team - some people on this forum automatically assume that the person maybe anti Pakistan team, is assumed English or Indian supporter.
My point is that our Structure and management gives Woolmer (and for that matter any coach) half players. Players who lack the basic technical abilities to play on this Level like Handling the slightest Swing or bounce. A judgement of Bowler and deliveries at which to play and which to leave. Temprament to stay on the wicket in difficult situations.
Our Openers have shown that they lack these qualities which are basic requirements for Test-Level Cricket. Yet we r unable to produce ppl with these qualities as often as we produce Fastbowlers. That tells u something about Domestic surfaces. Every medium pace bowler will be spanked all over the park by Opener (and following batters too) like we have. So for a bowler to survive in these conditions the only choice is Pace.
Our management hopes to get some Real Openers while they give all these guys a Net-Session (mostly short) under real life situations. This means they still know nothing about the root of the problem. Changing and chopping players will continue like before and our No. 3 and 4 will be virtual Openers. So why not have a bowler or 2 more in the final 11.
Please don't come up with stats which pair had the best avarage etc. etc. the point is that our Openers lack what it takes to be called Test-Level Opener. It's not their fault but more of the Environment they grew in as players.
At present we are discussing the Pakistan opening crisis and possible options to resolve this problem, various possibilities and options have already been discussed. However, these are not a short term solutions but long term solution must be found not just for the opening pair but also for the weak Pakistan batting. Players like Inzi and Yousaf are not going to be around for ever and once they retire the batting is likely to get even weaker.
Some of the reasons for the failure of Pakistan batsmen have been highlighted nicely above and I totally agree with them.
The tracks in Pakistan do not test the technique of a player and they can play a certain shot and still get away with it; however the problem really occurs when they play away from the sub-continent on bouncy and swinging tracks – where our batsmen tend to struggle. Therefore it is important that they find batsmen who are not only good on the flat tracks of the sub-continent but have the ability to play on any type of surface – until this happens our batting problems will not go away.
Each player has some sort of weakness especially when they start their careers and it’s up to the coaches and the players themselves to improve their technique and should show signs of improvement each time they play. Players like Butt and Farhat rather then showing improvements are showing the same weakness each time they play and hierarchy should really be asking the question as to how long they can afford to play them before looking at the alternatives.
It is important that the PCB finds long term solutions to the Pakistan batting failures; talented and promising young batsmen should be groomed properly by the coaches. These players rather then getting selected for the senior team should be sent overseas to places such as Australia, England or South Africa to polish their techniques and get advanced coaching.
If they can afford to pay so much money and invite the likes of Boycott for batting coaching why can't they pay this sort of money and send the talented players overseas for proper coaching and invest in the future?
Once they are ready they should be selected for the senior team; what we are seeing in Pakistan is that the younger players are thrown in at the deep end who do not have the basic techniques or have the mental toughness to play at this level. Sometimes this works if the player is exceptionally talented but more often it fails.
damn we are going down again.