both teams suffered major bowling weapon losses. Saeed Ajmal now and Waqar Younis then. (for different reasons though)
Another one. Sarfaraz Ahmed now and Moin khan than, unusual wicket keeper batsmen.
Both the wicket keepers are from Karachi.
However, the major difference is Pakistan is still playing the 1990's style cricket but the rest of the world cricket teams are playing the current fast paced T20 style cricket. Therefore, Pakistan does not stand a chance.
why don't we have a joint Indo-Pak team...the best from both side...for cricket purposes, let's have a united India team...no one can beat us! :D
From this current team, not much will be added into the joint Indo-Pak team. It would be mostly Indians not Pakistanis making up the 11, unlike before from the 90's or 2000's. Apart from Junaid Khan and Irfan, not any Pakistan pacers are better than their Indian counterparts. That's the fact of the matter. Dhoni is much better WC batsman, than any Pakistani that has come since Moin Khan/Rashid Latif era.
We have many major problems but biggest of all is openers. We are just not able to find reliable-agree openers after Amir/Saeed pair.
We do not have technically correct aggressive openers. Likes of Finch, Warner, De Kock, Rahane etc just takes the game away from opponents in first 10 overs and we normally lose 2-3 wickets in first 10 and even if we do not lose any wickets our score is somewhere b/w 40-50 in first 10 overs almost 25-40 less than other teams scores. Only if we can somehow find good pair at the top, few other problems will be solved automatically.
Don't know who-else they could have picked (because the fast bowling cupboard is empty) but it was a ridiculous decision to take the likes of Ehsan Adil, Sohail Khan, Bhatti to the World Cup when they had not even played for Pakistan in the last 4 or 5 months
It is a joke to compare this team with the 1992 team. No comparison at all. That team had, Amir Sohail, Inzamam, Miandad, Imran, Aaqib Javed, Mushtaq, Akram, Moin Khan. No one in the current team apart from Misbah and Afridi can compare with them.
Having watched all the world cups from 1975 onwards I can say without a shadow of doubt that this is the weakest Pakistan team ever to play in a world cup.
Having watched all the world cups from 1975 onwards I can say without a shadow of doubt that this is the weakest Pakistan team ever to play in a world cup.
I can see worse than just 2015 World cup. I can see black era of Pakistan cricket.
In early days (50s and 60s) there were few players in between. Merit, hard work and performance was getting rewarded, resulting in Pakistan progressing. In 70s and 80s, lot of talented players came in, nepotism started but nepotism was not blunt, rather selective. Pakistan team became strong and started getting respect from world cricket.
In 90s, nepotism took over cricket team (Pakistan team became Parchi team), though hard working and talented players kept coming. Merit, performance and hard work became secondary thing. Pakistan team started deteriorating, though slowly.
In 2000s and beyond:Players stopped expecting reward from hard work and performance. Merit became ‘F’word. Hence most new and talented players stopped coming forward. Team started deteriorating fast, and today it has deteriorated to such level that now it is almost at the bottom. There is little hope that Pakistan cricket would comeback again (at least soon, as for that, lot of surgery would be needed).
It is a joke to compare this team with the 1992 team. No comparison at all. That team had, Amir Sohail, Inzamam, Miandad, Imran, Aaqib Javed, Mushtaq, Akram, Moin Khan. No one in the current team apart from Misbah and Afridi can compare with them.
Ehsan bhai, liked of Mushtaq, Moin & Inzimam were unknowns then. Who's to say that sarfaraz or Yasir or Haris cannot be greats in future?
Don't know who-else they could have picked (because the fast bowling cupboard is empty) but it was a ridiculous decision to take the likes of Ehsan Adil, Sohail Khan, Bhatti to the World Cup when they had not even played for Pakistan in the last 4 or 5 months
Perhaps Imran Khan or Rahat..
I don't know why Ehsan or Sohail made such an impression. To be honest, I would have picked Sami even now. He's still the fastest bowler in Pakistan. ;)
The 1992 Pak WC Team - Had a lot of very unknown players.
Inzi, Mushy, Aqib and Moin were all 21 or below at that time, see link: Pakistan Squad | Benson & Hedges World Cup, 1991/92 | Cricket Squads | ESPN Cricinfo
But the biggest difference is in approach. In today’s cricket world, scoring 300+ runs is normal. Back then, it wasn’t. A 250 score could be a winning total because cricket wasnt that aggressive as its played today (thanks to T20 format). So the approach is the biggest weakness thing. The way Younis & Misbah play in the middle overs, its the 1992 approach of consolidating and keeping wickets till the end with a 60-70 strike rate. That’s not today’s requirement, and that makes you lose the match and put pressure on the lower order and that fails.
