Re: Pakistan’s Inzamam waiting for Ashes to gauge England
[quote=“LahoriMunda”]
Over-rated or not Harmison is a decent bowler but you cant call him very good. Simon Jones still has to prove his worth on a regular basis and though flintoff has performed well agaisnt us he is quickly becoming more of a batting all rounder recently. Razzaq did well with the bat too, but that was ages ago. Now he is more of a lower order batsman and a run container*
Isnt he now? when was the last time a pakistani bowler was rated no 1 in the world and had an australian not only praising and respecting him? This hasnt happened long since waqar and wasim retired.
Jones is well suited to our sort of wickets because of his ability to reverse swing the bowl plus he has got the pace.
As far as flintoff is concerned he hasnt performed with the bat at all this summer however his value as a bowler is immense. as you rightly pointed out he can contain but what u forgot to mention is that all this containment leads to wickets being taken by him because he is consistent with his line legnth and speed unlike razzaq. a point in case is the recent natwest series final.
Players like Inzimam, Youhana and Younis Khan would not not troubled much by the likes of Harmison, Jones & Flintoff. Salman Butt is solid as an opener and Afridi is unpredictable agaisnt any attack so I dont think it would make much of a difference. As far as your comments on the pitches go, Inzi only indicated his intention to play fast bowlers who have been our main strength over the years. Nowhere did he mention what that we were going for greentops.
Inzi and Yoyo will manage. By managing i mean they will get 4 decent scores in the six innings which they get to beat in simply because they are the only good batsmen we have. You have far to much belief in Younis’s ability he might get one century as he normally does in a series but we need consistent performances from players like him Salman, Yasir and Shahid if we are to succeed. Salman, Yasir and Younis are in the team purely on their ability to bat and they might have shown glimpses of their talents in the past however there is nothing which points that they can perform consistently in a high profile series.
As for Inzi’s indication to play fast bowlers why would he play them on a flat batting track of course it wud be on a track which helps them get wickets. this two me exposes us to as much trouble as we aim to put england in. this is a double edged sword we would need to play really well because the english bowlers can easily expose our weaknesses on helpful tracks.
As we all know he has nothing but speed !!! We all didnt know Shoaib has nothing but speed. Take a look at Shoaib’s record, you cant achieve all that with just speed. Just incase you were wondering most top batsman would not care about a bowler who has just speed to go with. Shoaib is a destructive fast bowler with a very good record. His attitude over shadows his accomplishments but no one can deny his talent as a match winning talented fast bowler. And if Jones could be considered good then I guess we can put Sami in the “good” list as well
Shoaib has a good record against the likes of Newzealand, Zimbabwe and West Indies hardly world class opposition. Now you would be able to throw in the occassional performace of brilliance against India, Australia and England however they have been few and far in between and doesnt really do his talents the justice. Deep down if he is honest to himself shoaib would admit that he could have done much better as a bowler. As for him having anything other then speed why dont u tell me what is the something else which he does have? a slower bowl maybe? he defineltly does not know how to swing the bowl let alone reverse swing in and quite frustratingly he hardly bowls to a plan which is the reason why he goes for so many runs.
If we play to our potential we wouldnt be in a “delimma” at all. We have a talented young side with everyone willing to give it all. Players like Rana Naved, Shoaib Malik, Salman Butt, Kamran Akmal & Danish Kaneria are maturing fast and along with proven performers like Youhana, Inzi, Akhtar they will be prove more then handful for the visitors.
When it comes to playing for Pakistan there shouldnt be a question about playing to our potential. These are professional cricketers we are talking about who have a job to do and i dont for one second doubt their ability. My point is simply that the opposition we are coming up against is as talented as we are if not better. we need to accept this fact and play to our stregnths just as england would in the summer of 2006.
At the end of the day we all want Pakistan to win. Its better to plan now and be prepared rather then cry when they come and beat us like they did in 2000 and trust me it hurt real bad seeing Thorpe and Hussain celebrating in National Stadium Karachi i dont want to see those scenes again.
