The 4-nil one-day drubbing at the hands of England atleast proves one thing - most of us already knew about this weakness - that our batting is not upto current international standards in both tests and ODIs and requires a major overhaul. It lacks both quality and depth and it is clear that we won’t win many games against good sides with the current pathetic set of batters. To put it mildly, batting is simply crap. Younis only is test class and the less said about the one-day batting the better. Pakistan won the test series against England despite the team’s fragile batting
Our batting mediocrity was so brutally exposed by England during the one-dayers. They outplayed us despite not being a great one-day batting side themselves. Pathetic totals of 220-230 won’t win you many games against most decent sides these days anywhere. The only game in which we managed to compete with England was the 2nd one-dayer. Even yesterday despite England losing those couple of wickets in the middle period, you always felt that they would get there comfortably as the target was n’t really a big one
Batting is even more essential for Pakistan as we routinely gift 20-30 runs to the opposition in every game because of our inept fielding (same applies to India btw). So for us to compete well with good sides the aim must be to score 270-280 runs consistently
In tests you can often get away with a modest batting line-up if you have good attacking wicket-taking bowlers (case in point recent test series vs England which we won despite not doing anything special with the bat during the whole series barring that 200-run odd partnership between Younis and Azhar in the 3rd test). But limited overs cricket is essentially a batsman’s game, tailor made for world-class batsmen. In ODIs you can often get away with a mediocre bowling attack (as you have to contain the opposition but not necessarily take all ten wickets) if you possess world-class batters in your line-up
Pakistan’s whole batting approach in the ODIs is ultra defensive and so stuck in the 80s and 90s which requires a major rethink. We can afford to play only two from Asad, Azhar, Misbah and Younis. The other 4 batters must be one-day specialists. In the present team Umar Akmal only (though he did not exactly cover himself in glory in the one-day series) fits that description. In Umar’s defence asking him to keep wickets and then constantly moving him up and down the batting order did not really help his form or confidence.
Younis and Misbah (maybe even Afridi) are unlikely to play in the next World Cup in Aus/NZ in 2015 so it makes no sense to persist with them in the one-day team beyond year 2012.
Call them stabilizers, consolidators or grafters or whatever you like but a good one-day consolidator should atleast be deft at rotaing the strike and taking 5-6 single/doubles per over. Our outdated mode of going at 3.0-3.5 RPO initially before accelerating in the latter stages needs to be shunned for good. This go-slow approach, keeping wickets in hand and then having a bash in the final overs worked well in the 80s and 90s when we batted deep and had genuine all-rounders like Imran, Wasim and Razzaq. If you want to chase a good total especially when you are pathetic at chasing any 220+ total then you do not pack your side with test players. You need to attack and show intent (5+ RPO) from the word go.
We need specialists for every format, a great player of one format need not perform well in another format. Sunil Gavaskar a great test opener was almost a liability in the one-dayers. Allan Border and Steve Waugh despite being great test batsmen had modest one-day averages of 30.62 and 32.52 respectively.
Players such as Viv Richards, Greenidge, Zaheer, Miandad, Ponting, Sachin, Lara, Gilchrist and Sangakkara are a rare breed
The selectors need to pick the right players for the right format. Guys like Ahmed Shehzad, Nasir Jamshed, Shahzaib Hasan and Hammad Azam should be in our one-day team (or squad atleast)
The funny thing is, before the start of the series, most people felt (I certainly did) that England would beat us comfortably in tests and that we might have a chance against them in the one-dayers and T20Is. The exact opposite has happened
Expect another thrashing in the T20Is (England are world champions in that format!)