Yes, Fielding has caused problems, but with someone like Woolmer in charge that can be sorted out.
The big problem has to be the openers, if you lose two quick wickets often it will cause your middle order problems, especially as your big players are at No’s 3,4,5.
At the moment Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf are having to face the new ball all too often. They are coming in also knowing all the pressure to build a big total is with them.
The fact that there is no consistency, and nobody knows who the best two openers are or who gonna open in 1st ODI against SA, is always going to cause problems. For the last 5 years or so Australia have dominated the world, one of the key factors has been Hayden and Langer, look at the dominant West Indies side Greenidge and Haynes, solid opening pairs are for me one of the main keys to long term success.
^^ Ditto and still remember Woolmers comment after he was appointed the coach of men in Green and he said thats the root cause or bad performances, however he got comfy and yet he hasn’t done anything at all grumpy:
for me, its definetly fielding in ODI cricket and temperment in test cricket. Hafeez and Farhat both have the technique to play long innings. We have seen Farhat play his odd 70 of 200 balls or 68 of 150 balls. Thats what we need more often. But the lack of temperment is both batsmens weakness. They want to get on with the game and thats what the bowlers exploit. They need to frustrate the bowlers so they try different things, and when they do, they will give bad balls away, and thats what they need to put away.
For ODI's you're attacking all the time, and thats where batsmen like Akmal, and Hafeez do pretty good. Even if you lose a 2-3 wickets in the first 20 overs, but get around 150, thats enuff for the rest of the batsmen to take the score around 300 without taking too much risk. So the real problem lies in fielding. Where other teams take splendid catches, Pakistan drop the easiest ones, and where other teams produce run outs by direct hits, Pakistani's probably hit the stumps 1 out of 10 times. I think fielding won't improve untill Inzi leaves. You need a captain who inspire's his players, and he does that in his batting, and slip fielding, but other than that...he is a lazy fielding. But with players like Nazir coming back, and Rehman doing well, and Malik, Hafeez, Afridi and Younis there as well...things don't look so bad.
No doubt openers always influence the rest of the batting line up, but if we see Younis and Yousaf didnt do bad, which means openers didnt made too much of a difference. Big problem is Fielding and lack of professionalism. If any one watch Aussies matches, we could see 10-20% of the wickets for aussies bowlers come from splended catches by players like Clarke, Symond, Hussey, Hodge, Mitchel and Langer. Essentially the whole team. At the same time, most of thier bowlers economy come with the help of excellent fielding and field placing, thus pressurizing batsmen for runs and force them to play half decent shots, which results in splended catch, or sometime rash running between the wicket will cause a run out.
In Pakistan case, most of the bowlers get their wicket through bowled or lbw, run outs very rare, and runing 3 or 4 runs through runing bbetween the wicket is even rare.
Inzi and co running between the wicket in test matches is like test matches, where Inzi believe why should he run for a single, which result in extra pressure on a youngster who wants to get to the non stricker end. Thats why young players flourish with Younis, Yousaf (though false start is a risk), Miandad, but not with Inzi.
I think lack of professionalism is the cause of all this. In present day cricket, cricket is a full time job, if you are getting paid for it, then why don't you keep yourself in supreme shape for the game?
Prove of fielding factor could be sort by comparing PAK vs SA first ODI. Pak dropped catches and help SA batter, SA hold on to hard chances and helped the bowlers and put PAK under pressure at 77/4.
Pakistan had excuses of injured bowlers but we showed in recent 20-20 and ODI that our batting could not fight like men.
They crumbled.
In the 20-20 we had excuse that our mainstays were absent.
In the ODI are mainstays namely YoYo, MoYo, and Inzi gave their wickets away.
A Challenge in which the odds are against you, requires determination, self belief with a flavor of reality.
We lack the above. Are we chokers? Others can judge.
why to blame the coach for everything ? younis khan was a good fielder when he came into the national team and he still is. Now if someone drops a catch or makes eratic throws from the outfield or is unable to hit the wicket then its their own short coming. They always do these drills but truth is that players dont apply themselves into it. These things are learned by the players at early age and then they keep on grooming them. Alas!. pakistani players only concentrate on either batting/bowling. They consider fielding as waste of time
Yes, true. Infact, they are mentally weak. I bet if the target would be 292, they could had not achieved it too.
Mentally, they had already lost the match when they came to chase 392.
Look at SA. They chased 431 of Australia at the same venue successfully few months ago.
How? Simply they didn't lose their nerves and never thought that it is impossible. They thought if their bowlers have given too too much runs then its nothing wrong with them. Their bowlers were just outplayed by a best team in the world. And they have also best batsmen who can do that. They just went on and they got it.
So, such mental approach is very necessary to be adopt in modern cricket. Our team needs a professional and full time psychologist who should make them mentally strong enough to never think to give up.
In old cricket, the success formula was:
G.F + G.T + G.S + G.E = SUCCESS
But in today's cricket, it has slightly changed:
G.F + G.T + G.S + G.E + S.N = SUCCESS
G.F = Good Fitness
G.T = Good Technique
G.S = Good Skill
G.E = Good Experience
S.N = Strong Nerves
How? Simply they didn't lose their nerves and never thought that it is impossible. They thought if their bowlers have given too too much runs then its nothing wrong with them. Their bowlers were just outplayed by a best team in the world. And they have also best batsmen who can do that. They just went on and they got it.
So, such mental approach is very necessary to be adopt in modern cricket. Our team needs a professional and full time psychologist who should make them mentally strong enough to never think to give up.
In old cricket, the success formula was:
G.F + G.T + G.S + G.E = SUCCESS
But in today's cricket, it has slightly changed:
G.F + G.T + G.S + G.E + S.N = SUCCESS
G.F = Good Fitness
G.T = Good Technique
G.S = Good Skill
G.E = Good Experience
S.N = Strong Nerves
One can see their morale at bottom from the fact, as soon as Inzi won the toss, he decided to field, since he saw in 20/20 game that SA chased successfully, so he concluded his bowling is weak and batting is strong, but at a batting wicket if you post a decent score, no matter how strong is opposition you could put pressure on them.
How we will see after the result of first ODI, no matter what the wicket may look like if Inzi won the toss he is going to bat this time. Additionally, as Asif Iqbal rightly pointed out, Inzi get briefing from Woolmer before coming to field, and the follow those instructions (as far as bowling changes are concern) no matter whats the match situation is, like takin second power play, not bringing in a spinner and keeping Rana for too long etc.
grumpy: