Re: Wasim Akram suggests boot camp for Pakistan team
I want Pakistan to do well but I am also being realistic about our chances
Here, it is pertinent to look at our batting performance in Australia in 1992.
Imran Khan played the entire WC despite right shoulder inflammation and pain (was taking steroid injections); missed the games against Windies and England.
It was a league format consisting of all 9 test playing nations at the time. BD got their test status later.
New Zealand were unbeaten in the tournament (i.e. had beaten each of the other 7 test playing nations) before they played their last league game against Pakistan.
1992 World Cup
v WI: Pak made 220/2 >> comprehensive 10-wicket defeat by the Windies (221 for none)
v Zimbabwe: Pak 254/4 >> Zim 201/7
v England: Pak 74 all out on a wet wicket (No result; saved by the rain)
v India: India made 216 >> Pak all out for 173
v SA: SA made 211 >> Pak 173/8 (were cruising at one stage 135/2 but RRR suddenly jumped to almost 9 after recalculation) - robbed by the rain
v Aus: Pak made 220 >> Australia 172 all out, won thanks to the bowling
v Lanka: chasing (212/6) Pak slipped to 84/3 >> rescued by Miandad and Saleem Malik >> 216/6
v NZ: 166 >> 167/3 - won thanks to the bowling
SF v NZ: NZ made 262/7 >> Pak 264/6 rescued by Inzi and Miandad. Imran and Ramiz batted well as well
Final v England: Pak made 249/6 and restricted England to 227. Again rescued by Imran and Miandad. Both very lucky to survive and at 40 odd for 4 with both IK and Miandad gone, scorecard would not have been very different from 1999 WC Final!!!
The reason why I am placing so much emphasis on batting is because I believe that limited overs matches are won mainly by batsmen (70% factor imo). Bowling does not come into the equation unless you put a decent score on the board and by that I mean scoring 270+/- consistently.
Re: Wasim Akram suggests boot camp for Pakistan team
They had a stupid rain rule in 1992 whereby they took into account only overs in which maximum number of runs were scored. say if overs were reduced to 20 after rain then your revised target was the sum of 20 highest scoring overs of the opposition!!! very harsh to say the least
And even after winning our last game against NZ, Pak still had to rely on the result of Aus (win or lose Aus were already out) v Windies match. Australia had to beat Windies for us to progress to the semis. Windies and not us would have qualified for the semis if they had beaten Australia!!
**It was not a high scoring world cup by any means. **220-230 was the average score for most teams
Re: Wasim Akram suggests boot camp for Pakistan team
^ Adelaide Oval
Only two Aussie batsmen clicked (in the T20 game) and they still managed to give us a real scare (despite target being 192)!
The way Pakistan bat, we will never be consistent in any format. Pak might spring a surprise in the group games (because we are unpredictable) but to win a world cup you have to play esp. bat consistently well which is a big ask with our current batting which is even more fragile than the 1992 outfit.
Our current pace bowling (infact overall bowling) is over-rated. Junaid is not even half as good as Wasim (even he struggled in 1992 and Aaqib was the better bowler in the earlier games)
IK ki cornered speech ney jadoo kar diya warna they hardly looked like a world-cup winning team in the earlier games.
I know honey ko tau kuch bhi ho sakta hai. Even Zimbabwe can beat Pakistan
That is the problem even though we won the game all we concentrate is the fluke innings of Maxwell (Yes fluke, how many did he score in the rest of the tournament if he is that brilliant batsmen). The thing we should be focusing on is how our team turned it around and won the match, not Maxwell.
Re: Wasim Akram suggests boot camp for Pakistan team
He makes a good point, we should take full advantage of the free time in between tours. The recent matches suggest the players can certainly improve on fitness and fielding. The time away from the game can also affect sharpness in the field, therefore, it makes sense to keep the players active.