Re: wasim on sarfraz
Wasim Akram must be chewing his words. I am surprised why some people think that Pakistanis do not know about cricket or they can be fooled by crickets who got chance to play for Pakistan. Fact is that, almost all Pakistanis in life have played cricket and know a lot about cricket. Secondly, Pakistan cricket team for world cup was selected by bunch of idiots or racists, and once in World cup they kept their biases in selecting players to play. Younis should be sacked (and he would be).
As for Sarfraz opening, figures speak louder than words and to say that Younis was not letting Sarfraz play in team was for ‘good of Sarfraz’, that was biggest BS and farce of highest order, that only fools (or racists full of biases) would buy.
It is obvious that one cannot do any good or justice with a players by keeping that player out of game and claiming that he was kept out of match for his own good.
Sarfraz was not in team because of Parchi (like most players are) and thus do not need such stupid protection. If Younis wanted to protect players career than he should have withdrawn from world cup or made all players to not play.
Now, lets compare Sarfraz performance as opener with regular Opener (Shahzad) … unless one says that Shahzad is also not a regular opener.
Sarfraz opened for Pakistan 6 times. 4 times in ODis and 2 times in T20I. That also couple of months before world cup.
Except in one T20I where he did not scored much, in rest of 5 matches, 4 ODIs and 1 T20I … Sarfraz not only made more runs than regular opener Shahzad (that is, in each match), but made runs with better SR and lost his wicket after Shahzad loosing his wicket. In some of those matches, he scored higher than all batsmen. Here are scores:
First ODI (7 Oct 2014): 1st ODI: Australia v Pakistan at Sharjah, Oct 7, 2014 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo
Shazad: 4 runs at SR 40
Sarfraz: 34 runs at SR of 83
Second ODI (10 Oct 2014): 2nd ODI: Australia v Pakistan at Dubai (DSC), Oct 10, 2014 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo
Shazad: 61 runs at SR 74
Sarfraz: 65 runs at SR of 90
Third ODI (12 Oct 2014): 3rd ODI: Australia v Pakistan at Abu Dhabi, Oct 12, 2014 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo
Shazad: 26 runs at SR 63
Sarfraz: 32 runs at SR of 82
Overall, Sarfraz average as an opener was 42 and SR was around 86.
Sarfraz also opened T20I against New Zealand on Dec 4, 2014: Here it was Sarfraz 76 no in 64 balls that steered Pakistan to win (Sarfraz was man of the match).
Pakistan vs New Zealand 1st T20 in Dubai: Sarfraz steers Pak to win - Emirates 24|7
NZ made 135, Pak chasing 136 to win, made 140 for 3 in 19.1 overs. Sarfraz opened the inning and scored 76 no in 64 balls.
Many Pakistani openers performance is worse than Sarfraz. Certainly few matches Sarfraz opened with Shahzad, Sarfraz performance is better. If Sarfraz was unable to open, than he would have failed in his earlier openings too and would not have got selected as wicket keeper as well as 3rd opener.
Treatment of PCB: Sarfraz succeeded as Wicket keeper batsman in test and ODI. To find excuse so that PCB can end his careeer, he was asked to open the inning against Australia. Sarfraz excelled as opener in those ODis against Australia, making more runs than Shahzad in each match with better strike rate. PCB got worried, so what management did, to demoralize Sarfraz, they demoted him down the order again. (An unbiased and patriotic cricket management, citing his successful opening performance, would have let him play as regular opener).
Anyhow, with no excuse to drop him from world cup (public pressure was also there and management wanted to drop Fawad too), Sarfraz was selected not just as W/K but W/K and reserve opener.
Opener Hafeez got injured, so it was natural that racist Younis and PCB management should have asked Sarfraz to open (he was taken as reserve opener in world cup), but no, racist and biased management did not wanted him to play, hence he was kept out of all world cup matches. After 4 matches and 2 to play (as it was expected that Pakistan would not qualify, and Pak vs Ireland would be last match), it was not Younis and Misbah who put Sarfraz in the team, but public pressure (one can see newspapers, that is full of demonizing PCB, Younis and Misbah for not letting Sarfraz to play), Sarfraz at last was given chance to play. And this is what we got.
Just imagine … When Sarfraz lost his wicket, Pakistan was 92 runs in 16.4 overs (SR = 92). Ideally, most teams would have scored over 300 with this start. What happened after Sarfraz lost his wicket?
Pakistan remaining 8 players who were getting chance after chance to play in world cup, lost their wickets adding only 130 runs. Even Younis, who started playing better while Sarfraz was on crease, became tuk-tuk player again. Misbah with such strong start, made his first 9 runs wasting 29 balls. I am pretty sure that if Sarfraz was not playing, Pakistan team would have got out for less than 200 runs.
As for Wicket keeping of Sarfraz, It was joined best performance in world cup with Gilchrist. Some of the catches were amazing. Not a single catch was dropped (that never happened with Akmal brothers) and surely Amla catch was unbelievable. Just that Amla catch was so difficult that most W/K would not have taken it and no one would have blamed them. Not taking that catch also meant another four runs for Amla. With Amla on crease and the way he was playing, there was no chance that Pakistan would have won the match.
So … please do not try to defend what cannot be defended. We are all intelligent and can see what is happening.
And yea, do not blame Yayha Hussaini (what some are trying to do), as question he asked is getting asked by many in news articles, facebook, twitter, and comment section of newspaper. Regardless of what Yahya do or don’t, certainly what he asked is concern of most Pakistanis, and Yahya only raised the issue what any good journalist should have done (regardless of personal grudge or not).