Captain1
September 30, 2012, 10:27pm
828
Re: Pakistan v India - ICC WT20 2012 Super 8 Match
Unfortunately several of the current crop of young players of team Pakistan have not had the luxury of playing alongside Akram, Waqar, Inzi, or even Mohammed Yousuf. The Pak teams of the 70s and 80s had several iconic players to mentor youngsters coming in through the ranks. Players of ‘stature’ like Imran, Zaheer Abbas, Miandad, Mudassar Nazar, Wasim Bari. Wasim and Waqar learnt a lot from Imran. I remember Imran walking up to Wasim after each ball and speaking with him and showing him which way to grip the ball with respect to the seam. He did this practically after each ball Akram bowled in his initial matches.
Inzi was the last link of that great chain that dates back to the 80s and 70s. Afridi could have been another link to continue that chain. However, despite the initial promise, he has failed to live up to expectations (though most Pakistanis still consider him a legend and revere him as ‘The Beast’).
That leaves team Pakistan as a revolving door of ever changing captains who lead a team of several ex captains. Very rare to find a few ‘iconic’ players who form a stable core of this team around which to groom and crystallize the cricketing and mental strength of younger players"*
I disagree with this analysis, why did we lose against India when Inzi, Wasim, Waqar were in the team? Mohammad Hafeez, Shoaib Malik, Kamran Akmal, Umar Gul, Imran Nazir have played alongside with Inzamam, haven’t they?