I have seen many comments after this ban for asif and shoaib, and how disheartened people are about the chances in World Cup! I cant believe this, because remember this is the Pakistani team we are taking about! in 03 the cup expectations were probably highest ever, but we all saw wat happen, i still think pakistan has a ver strong team, if rana regains form, also if shabeera returns and can bowl with a clean action, we have a strong batting line up on those carribean pitches! Inshallah Pakistan will win the World cup, and again im saying it Sami will play a huge part along with Yasir Hameed!! Inshallah!
Re: Pakistans World Cup Chances!!
I think it would be great if u can elobrate about sami and hameed that they will play huge part by playing or by sitting out........................and give chance to others
Re: Pakistans World Cup Chances!!
To be very honest, i dont think so if it will matter alot without Shoaib Akhter, the stupid person! but yes, Asif`s presence counts alot. I have read somewhere that his punishment could be reduced to weeks , lets hope for the best.
Pakistan only need good batting, if they will keep scoring 270 + in every match, we will always have chance to win the game. and batting is for sure capable of doing that. So i am still thinking that Pakistani team is "dangerous"
Re: Pakistans World Cup Chances!!
Loss of Shoaib and Asif is huge but Pakistan can come back from this and put up a good show in the world cup. As for Sami he will play a huge part in getting the opposition to pile up runs against us.
Re: Pakistans World Cup Chances!!
never loose hope yaar. If you remember the 1992 WC victory, our bowling line up very bad....we had akram and aaqib but the rest of the bowlers were unknown. Imran Khan was not fully fit.. Javed was not fit...Most of the players were very new..At the end after no hope was left, we won.
Our team mashallah is still very strong for One dayers...
Re: Pakistans World Cup Chances!!
I don;t think its the exclusion of few players rather i m more worried about the role of the new chairman in splitting the team... Seems like he has been sent to destroy the one last remaining sport in our country after the pathetic performances in Hockey and unknown Squash... So he has shown considerable speed in demoralizing the team, opening few pandora boxes, raising non-issues and starting new controversaries... if he keep working like that i m sure we will be giving tough times to Kenya and Bangladesh in the next World Cup..
Re: Pakistans World Cup Chances!!
all your comments were fine until this name farted 
Re: Pakistans World Cup Chances!!
I am not disagreeing with what you wrote, but right now these are very bold statements.
Re: Pakistans World Cup Chances!!
Plan for 2011.
Re: Pakistans World Cup Chances!!
You cannot find bowlers like Asif and Akhtar next day, it is impossible. Pakistani bowling is going to be next Indian bowling, no bite. Just batting relying team where Australia will keep raising cups.
People think that Asif will make come back, I doubt it. Age is not the factor, will, positive thinking and stamina is too. If Asif is banned from playing ODI, Test and even domestic Cricket, I do not think he will be able to retain his form. Very difficult.
Re: Pakistans World Cup Chances!!
Remember how Waqar had to opt out just before 92 world cup and yet we managed to surprise the best in the business. Lightning can strike twice ;)
Re: Pakistans World Cup Chances!!
It was Imran's captaincy and Javed's amazing run fest in the world cup. Batting is possible, captaincy I do not know. Moreover, even without Waqar, we had Wasim, Imran and Aqib Javed as bowlers. I doubt we were depleted like we are now.
Re: Pakistans World Cup Chances!!
anything can happen in the world cup,its just a few games here and there...but pakistan will be siginificantly weakened by the absence of asif and shoaib as was evident in the icc trophy and the england series.The rest of the bowlers are not in the same class,sami should not even be picked for the world cup he has been a disaster,as for others they are good,but there is nothing special about them.
Re: Pakistans World Cup Chances!!
Everyone keep going back to 1992 world cup how we manage to win, how Vicky was injured and we lost hope, this and that. But you all fail to understand that their was one man who had the attitude of never say die, the vision to see Pak as corner tiger and that was Khan sahib the great great Imran Khan. Thats what we are lacking with this team, its not Asif or Shoaib its the captancy. I am not saying with Asif and Shoaib gone our team streangth will still be powerfull. We have seen Inzi captancy and our dreams were shatered when we saw how Younus performed in the ICCCT as a captain. There is no one in the team who could take bold steps as Khan Sahib used to.
One thing will favour Pak in WC and that would be the pitches. I think Pak batsmen will be able to deliver on WI pitches we need to groom 2 or 3 more bowlers to make a good combination of bat and bowl.
The other advantage Pak will have is Inzi - a batsman whom we can rely on the most :k:
Re: Pakistans World Cup Chances!!
NO CHANCE AT ALL.
Re: Pakistans World Cup Chances!!
I am surprised how Nobody is mentioning Umar Gul and the potential he has...He has improved every time i have seen him since 2003, every time he went into bowl he looked like he learned from every outing, Him leading our bowling along with maybe Sami and Rana or Rao plus having Hafeez, malik as spin option and back up bowling of razaaq...its a pretty Okay attack, yeah it would look better with Asif or Shoaib. But point is they are not going to be there so we shouldnt even think about that and look into what we have.
Pak batting is more than capable of pulling it off in Windies,
Hafeez-----------------------(Batsman)
Imran/Afridi/Hameed/butt/Kamran---(Batsman)
Younis-----(Batsman)
Yousaf-----(Batsman)
Inzi---------(Batsman)
Kamran----(Keeper)
Razaaq----(Bowler/Batsman)
Afridi/Danish(Bowler)
Umar-------(Bowler)
Sami--------(Bowler)
Rana/Rao--(Bowler)
I think more worring thing for Pak is batting, if we get to have one of the openeing slot confirmed, i think that will solve 30% of batting problems...if we have hafeez bat with the attitude that he has to play bigger part of firrst 23 overs and not only try to slog'em but just to try to stay at wicket, that will take pressure of Inzi/Yousaf/younis, who will not have to consolodate the inning and will only focus on just obtaining the floating singles between 23-42 overs and then have allrounders Razaaq/Malik/Kamran have a go in last few overs...the tracks in WI are alot in favor of batsmam/teams who can go ballestic in last overs and accumultae 80+ runs in final 8 overs...i think that should be pakistani strategy.
Re: Pakistans World Cup Chances!!
good point by teaser to say u cant compare this team to 92, simply because captaincy plays a huge part in cricket, and thats y u cant compare them although Inzi is the best performer as captain but only lifts himself, the rest of the team doesent really draw inspiration from him, he leads by example and wants them to follow suit! Also i like the point raised about Umar Gul he seems to have really evolved after that tour of england! As for Sami, I just think that inzi uses him wrong, we need to tell sami to attack, he had a great spell in england when younis was captaining becasue sami was told to attack, and not hold back his pace!
Re: Pakistans World Cup Chances!!
Looking more into the schedule of the games. Pak has got two Practice games one with SA and other with Canada.
CAnada Game: is the first Practice game for Pak which is very good oppertunity for Pak to try out battng combitnations on top of the order, Pak should concentrate on getting best practice for its batsman and try to Bowled Canadain out so that bowlers can gain some confidance out of this
SA game: I am glad to see SA playing against Pak in practice game and not India/SL or even Eng because it will be a good reality check for pakistani team before they walk into play the main WC opener with WI
after two games Pak will have 3 off days and will be playing their First game with WI: on 13th during after this Pak plays two more games WIth Ireland and ZIB, which no matter how bad Pak does, Pak has got less chances of losing
SO after the frist round Pak will be at worse the Second qualifying team from Group D
*If Pak is 1st from GroupD: * Then Pak will/can play following teams from other groups
Pakistan v England
Pakistan v South Africa
Pakistan v New Zealand
Pakistan V Australia
India v Pakistan
Pakistan v Sri Lanka
*If Pak is 2nd from GroupD: *
Then Pak's schedule will look like this
Pakistan v Australia
Pakistan v NewZealand
Pakistan v Sri Lanka
Pakistan v South Africa
Pakistan v India
Pakistan v England
** all the above assuming that the group standings would be like this
GROUP A: 1) AUSTRALIA 2) SA
GROUP B: 1) SRILANKA 2) INDIA
GROUP C: 1) NewZealand 2)ENG
To me it seems like regardless of who tops their groups or nt Pak will be facing pretty much same oppositions unless untill a bigger upset happens like Scotland topping the GR A or any other minnows doing a mojor upset. This makes me like the format of the WC, the most fun worldcup that i remember was SC 92, not because Pak won but because in that tournament every team got to play every other team and no team was in a situation where they can try to win or lose matches on purpose to avoid facing a certain team in semi's.
After this round Top 4 teams will go into Semi finals...all in all i think its going to be a great tournament and it will be anybody's WC....Pak even after losing akhter and Asif will have More than a chance to pull somethin off...or atleast thats what i hope so
Re: Pakistans World Cup Chances!!
When Shoaib and Asif are banned, Shabbir's ban is about to end. We just have to manage is this way, to make sure that we have enough players in unbanned status, at any point in time, so to complete the team. Asif banned will be over in about 12 months, by that time Shabbir will be reported, or Sami/Umer one of the two will be banned for tempering. The idea is make sure enough players are in an "unbanned" state.