Number 6 spot belongs to a specialist batsman and therefore if they decide to drop hasan the ideal replacement is asim kamal. Afridi as i said before as well, is out of the side because malik is in. I don't think we should have afridi as a number 6 batsman in presence of guinea pig shoiab malik and out of form yousuf. Afridi has been in tremendous form lately but still he is afridi. Presence of afridi, malik and out of form yousuf will make our batting more vulnerable with only butt, inzi and younis in form.
I don't know how willing woolmer will be to continue his shoiab malik experiment if we lose the first test match. In my personal opinion, we should have afridi in the side if are going to Faisalabad 0-1 down.
Sami should be kicked out and rana/gul should come in.
yaar, stop looking at side-matches for any scaling, we have seen that a number of times. Side matches don’t have any pressure other than to “impress” but in real match they have a sword hanging on their neck. Asif is a good bowler, atleast better than Khalil ( ) but then Gul is much better.
i thought he was out with a tennis elbow injury…i’d rather see afridi in place of raza or kamal…have an additional bowling option as well…no one else in the current pak squad brings what afridi does to the game in terms of effort and getting the team pumped up…
Performances in side matches in no way guarantee success in big games, hassan raza seems to be like mansoor akhter, asim kamal had performed with consistency and would have been very useful in this test match
I am not sure why there is so much hype about kaneria, if england played warne comfortablyl, kaneria would pose no problems to them, mansoor amjad shud be given a chance too, he is a very useful batsman, I hope he has good temperament for big games
I dont think Asim Kamal would be coming in the side, they will probably replace Razzaq with Hasan Raza as Razzaq also gives the cpatain a bowling option plus he is a decent batsman. Although I think Akmal deserves a chance but I dontthink he can break in at this time. The only thing is Malik playing as a specialist batsman which is making us one batsman short since nomrally a regular opener took that spot but I think for the next match Malik will keep his place but Raza will make way for Razzaq if fit, if not then I think Asim Kamal would be in to replace Hasan Raza.
Although I agree with the change but there is no way of this happening since Gul is not in the team announced for the first two tests so they will either stick with Sami or he will make way for Rana.
Afridi does deserve the chance. In the last two test series (India and West Indies) he scored 360 runs at an average of 45 along with taking 14 wickets in the games he played. He has perfoemd well enough on the international level and should not have been dropped for people who performed well in domestic cricket. Although he is unpredictable, he has shown a lot of maturity, stability and consistency in the last two series.
^ Ditto. I predict Afridi coming in for Raza and Naved coming in for Sami IF Sami does not perform in the second innings. Malik is here to stay as an opener as Woolmer said before the series that he is going to give the opening pair a long run. Considering the sort of wickets we are playing on, I don't see Razzaq coming into the side with his medium pace. Afridi's bowling would be much handier.
Yoyo actually deserves to be dropped and could be replaced by Kamal but I doubt PCB will take such drastic measures after one match.
i read on jang the news that yousaf said he will not be able to field later in the series bcuz he cant throw the ball, so n e 1 who cant field should not be in the side, bring in asim kamal and afridi, for next test, it will also test kamals character to see if he is ready to take next step. people question shoaibs commitment to team but i think in a way Yousaf can be looked at under the same analogy
yah, i think afridi will be in for raza and Malik will stay
Rana will replace sami and thas abt the only changes they will make.
yousuf is way too relaxed abt his place in the team as u all mentioned.. i hope ICC suspends him for one game or we kick him out citing shoulder injury so we can get kamal in the 2nd test … i do miss old yoyo… he used to be soo consistent..
) but then Gul is much better.