Re: Should we see Salman Butt anymore in the tournament?
shukar hai…but the replacement is equally bad if not worse :halo4:
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Pakistan’s Salman Butt to miss semi-final against New Zealand today
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\09\22\story_22-9-2007_pg2_8
CAPE TOWN: Vice captain and opener Salman Butt, currently under a bad patch, will miss Saturday’s (today) semi-final of the Twenty20 World Cup against New Zealand and is likely to be replaced by Yasir Arafat. The left-handed batsman from Lahore scored just 74 runs in five matches. “There is a strong chance that Yasir will play in place of Salman,” a team source told APP here on Friday.
Salman, who was the top scorer in the Twenty20 tournament in Nairobi, is under heavy criticism for not coming up to the expectations and his maximum batting effort was seen against Bangladesh in the last match of the Super-Eight in which he scored 21 before being run out. He started the tournament by making 13 against Scotland and 17 against India in the preliminary round matches and in Super-Eight matches he scored 12 against Sri Lanka and 11 against Australia. Yasir has played two matches of the preliminary round, scoring 17 against Scotland and 12 against India and was dropped in all the three matches of the Super-Eight.
Team source said the team management now wanted to give a chance to Yasir but making a change in a winning combination at this crucial stage was not wise. “Salman has performed outstandingly in Nairobi tournament and then in practice matches before the Twenty20 Cup and his performance against Bangladesh is not bad and he is doing a good job in the role of vice captain,” he added. Against Bangladesh, Pakistan promoted the hard hitting all-rounder Shahid Afridi in the batting order as a make shift opener who opened the innings with Imran Nazir against Bangladesh and then Salman batted at number four. Afridi scored highest (39) in the match that Pakistan won by four wickets.
Sources said Imran Nazir and Mohammad Hafeez were also under a bad patch and they had not shown any notable performance. “It is not the right time and approach to make an experiment because we will be playing semi-final and we need experienced players like Salman with us to motivate the players,” he said and added, “having a make shift opener will serve no purpose and is not the solution of the problem and it can put the middle order under pressure in case of failure of top order.” app