My observation may not be as good as I think, but here is what I’ve observed.
Aussies, right from the word GO! start smacking all bowlers all around the ground be it test match or ODI. We have seen in this series that Aussies maintain (most of the time) an average of more than 4(+) per over. Very attacking strategy, disturbs the mental strength of any bowler which results in bowler loosing much of confidence (line/length).
Under Javed Miandad, we were so defensive that even in ODIs we tried to contain wickets and scored first 100 in 30-33 overs and cranked up run rate in later stage of the game. I am sure Test matches were played in similar fashion. I personally think this is how most of our batsmen have grown up with (defense, buildup slowly, take time to settle).
Under Bob Woolmer, I have seen our players trying to be more aggressive which is against the nature of their game and endup in loosing their wickets to misjudged shots. Younis Khan, Asim Kamal are prime examples of that. What Asim Kamal displayed against South Africa was a defensive approach, he was very patient and smacked only loose ball, but in last few outings he tried to be aggressive and picked wrong ball to hit out.
Is my observation correct?
What in your opinion should be the approach?
My personal opinion would be to have a mixed bag of players and let them play their natural game and teach them how to improve their own game rather teach/tell them to play otherwise.
OK, first of all, the strategy of saving wickets and hitting in the end was not particularly devised by Miandad nor was it such a bad approach. Remember the 1992 WC final. Imran Khan also adopted the same approach even though he was a pretty aggressive captain. So aggression in batting (i.e., hitting everything) does not necessarily translate to an overall aggressive strategy.
Secondly the players should play their natural game AND they should also play positively. By positively I mean that they should not hesitate in punishing a bad ball. A half volley is a volley and is meant to be smacked. So whereas, I agree that we should not imitate Australian or anyone's style, I also think that we should play with a positive frame of mind and should go for the runs when the opportunity is there. Of course, this would occasionally mean a wrong shot selection by an individual but then everybody else should chip in and cover an individuals folly.
Telling/teaching players to play positively is also a part of coaching and counts towards improving someone's natural talent.
While you believe that our players (batsmen) have inherited a defencive strategy and take time to settle down and buildup their innings, I think it is the other way round.
Because of excessive one day cricket, (most of) our batsmen have really lost that ability to go there, take their time to settle, score some runs and then build up their innings in test match cricket. Not just in this Australian tour but most of the time what I've observed (in tests) is that either they get our early or get out after they are well settled in the 30's/40's. Yasir, Younis, Shoiab Malik and Razzaq are examples of such batsmen.
first of all i am not really sure where this hitting from the first balll mentalility came into the team, saving wickets has always been the way to go srilanka changed it in 1996 and eva since its been seen as a betta way to go supported by feild restrictions, india opens very aggressive and so does most of the teams, pakistan’s problem is only that we have been switching coaches and teams so regulerly that we have not been able to maintain a team that has confidence and which can work on some strategy over some period of time, bob woolmer does not ask players to hit from the very first ball infact i believe if we had solid defensive technique her would have liked pakistanis to play defencive, its a five day game and don’t see any reason to play stupid shots to try and score runs quickly, over all i am happy with pakistan’s performance apart from perth most of them got out with thier own mistakes so there is less worry over there technique and ability, mentally i think bob is the best person to work ith them and they are performing betta everyday, in the end pakistan’s strategy should be to stay on the wicket as long as possible even if you are not scoring its very demoralising for the bowling side if they cannot get you out and about hitting, you are only sensible to hit a bad ball and aussies don’t send you many so betta of not hitting from ball one, by the way pakistan plays aggressively since they play a lot of ODI’s and have poor defence, bob should really be working on how to make them play sensible …
WitchD, you said that even in Imran's days (WC 92) our approach was score slowly and save wickets in ODI, but you gotta admit that man behind Imran's success was Miandad, he was the one who devised game plans.
In Miandad's era as batsman or coach, that is how most of players played.
In this Bob's era, I saw that our batsmen were trying to be aggressive (better run rate) and lost their wickets. In last inning (of this last match), Asim played much controlled and calm inning which is his natural game and that is what he should always go for unlike his prior inning.
well what bob is trying to do is to develop a batsman who punishes bad balls let it be the first six of an innings or the last, there is no point being defencive and letting poor balls unpunished, its exactly what aussies do … they do not try and hit every ball for me its just not aggressive or being defencive its about playing positive and sensible, you defend a good ball and score a bad one … no pre-meditated defence or sixes …
