Shoaib Malik is a great all-rounder but soon he is becoming a causality of our miss management. If we look at his stats and great inngs, they were mostly in One Day Internationals and mostly with his bat playing as first down or after Inzamam. Right now Younis Khan seems to have taken the first down position very well so I think team should be trying him at the position of Afridi. Afridi coming so late in the inngs does not help, if we give him chances he will settle in and give us great scores as an opener, just look at the ODI’s in India and than in West Indies when he was introduced as an opener. Both are great players and should be use properly, although I do not see either Afridi or Shoaib’s place in Test squad.
MWP....agree 100%.... Pakistan needs to get these straightened out before WC so that we can seriously threaten the likes of Australia, South africa and Win!
I agree completely that Shoiab Malik desrves a place in our one day team...
However as some of you have already noted his performances have come at no3 not as an opener...hes being molded into an opener and he hasnt been convincing there as yet...
Hes got two games and some of the champions trophy...I hope for his and pakistans sake that he gets it together...otherwise i reckon we should put Akmal there...
OK i dont get if AFRIDI cud come at no 3 Y NOT MALIK? he deserve his original position if its not yunis den there is no one who can replace that position............................
Shoaib Malik gets backing despite lacklustre performance
By our correspondent
BIRMINGHAM: Pakistan’s out-of-form batsman Shoaib Malik dropped from the playing line-up from the final one-day match against England here on Sunday got a word of support from one of the country’s batting legends.
Team manager Zaheer Abbas, one of the finest batsmen of his era, said he would still put his money on Shoaib Malik in spite of the fact that the opener scored at a poor average of four runs in his last four ODI outings. “Shoaib is a talented batsman with a good temperament. His only problem is that is going through a bad patch in his form, something that happens to all batsmen. I am sure he would overcome it soon,” said Zaheer.
Shoaib struggled throughout the one-day series to find the sort of form that earned him the reputation of being one of the most prolific Pakistani middle order batsmen in recent times.
He missed the Test series against England earlier this summer because of a knee problem after making a promising start to the tour with an unbeaten 110 against Leicestershire in Leicester that helped Pakistan win the three-day warm-up game by eight wickets at the start of the marathon tour. But he had to return home just before the opening Test at Lord’s because of a recurring ankle problem and took several weeks to recover from it but in the process lost his form.
The Sialkot-based all-rounder began positively with a 15 ball 16 in a Twenty20 game at Bristol on August 28 but has since scored just 16 more runs from four ODI outings. His scores in the series include 5 at the Sophia Gardens,10 at Lord’s, 1 at the Rose Bowl and a duck at Trent Bridge.
It was his dismal ouster in the fourth one-dayer when he handed a straight forward catch to left-arm spinner Michael Yardy that finally prompted the Pakistani team management to replace him with Imran Farhat for the last one-dayer here at Edgbaston.
Shoaib is a part of Pakistan’s squad for next month’s ICC Champions Trophy in India.
Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer believes that Shoaib’s run drought is a result of match practice. “It is very difficult in one-day cricket to find form in without enough match practice,” he said.
^What little bowling I saw of Malik, I was a bit impressed, seemed better than Hafeez and Afridi, cud be useful in future matches despite his current form.
Actually it was 1st time after 2003 World Cup that Malik missed a ODI for Pakistan,Yousaf, still has played all of them!very unusual for a Pakistani player,has to say.
i think he deserves a place in the team but not with his recent poor form. i do not think he is 100% fit. he was brought in at the wrong time. he is an all rounder and he should be used as such. he is not a specialist opener and succeding in one or two matches did not mean that he has become one. he should be batting low down the order where he could be really destructive with the old ball.
