South Africa v Pakistan, 1st ODI, Bloemfontein, 10th March

Nikema · March 10, 2013, 1:57pm

Re: South Africa v Pakistan, 1st ODI, Bloemfontein, 10th March

Here is my explanation from few years ago that might answer your question.

Nikema:

I was replying to Nancy’s post but then I thought this might deserve a thread of its own.

I disagree, when one “Plays” a test inning they are playing according to the demand and nature of test cricket and they are “in control” of their inning.

Where as YK on ODI’s does not ‘play’ a test inning, he is just in-competent (strong word but I believe in it) at ODI level. He cant perform at top of the order against most of the testing conditions (good bowling or tough pitch or match conditions or stronger teams), he can give an odd good inning but mostly he needed either weaker opposition, easy wicket, non pressure situation to score between 50 - 70 runs in ODI and will consistently fold against stronger teams throughout his career at top order and specially for the most part of last around 4 years.

His reputation of a player who has god given talent of picking the gaps, rotating the strikes (and thus he should be a star in batting line up) was (in my opinion very wrongly) associated with him in first 4 years of his career where he used to bat at 5 or 6 and when he came on there would be around 4-5 people in the circle and he would be able to get the ball in out field and scores 1’s and doubles, so according to cricket pundits in Pak..this was good enough to label him as guy who is good at picking singles etc etc, but as soon as he moved to 3, and the push to off side that used to go between Cover and long off and yield him one or two or the flick that went through un-patrolled midwicket in 35th over and got him 2 runs or a dab at point (which didnt exist in 40th over) and YK got a single, were constantly going straight to fielders and YK (who is un-capable of doing anything else) kept failing to do what he was labelled as expert (i.e, a player who can rotate strike).

He kept on getting away with his short comings by scoring against weaker oppositions + easy batting or game conditions + average fielding sides but for majority of time did not impress against better sides or tough batting conditions or good fielding sides. Luckily for him he belongs to Pakistan where neither the management nor the press or cricket fans are capable of making the above observation (or if they do they are not brave enough to point that out in media or to higher management ) so he played over 230+ games and with three more ODI’s in BD, he is going to get one more fifty and will get selected for next ODI series.