In the last 2 one dayers, our Pakistani pace duo of Sami and Shoaib had the perfect opportunity to defend low scores of 158 and 192 by blasting out an inconsistent South African batting lineup under perfect conditions (under lights)
Everything was going for them, the ball was swinging, they had 200% support from the crowd.
From time to time, we have all bragged about how good Sami and Shoaib are, how they can rip through any batting lineup in the world.
With the exception of 2 or 3 good deliveries and a dissmissal or two, nothing came special from them.
Is it maybe because these guys were highly overrated.
So many times in this series we saw Sami and Shoaib being smacked for boundries by Kallis or Dippennar, but right @ that moment the commentators (both Paki and neturals) cameback to defend them by saying how good and fast they are.
I agree they have some unlimited amount of talent, but whats the use of this talent when you can’t win matches for your country in crunch situations.
Just like the highly overrated Indian batting lineup, is it maybe just their individual stardom which gets them the spotlight, rather then their match winning performances.
Though just agreeing to a post does not add much value but I can't help saying that I agree 100% with you :)
Shoaib and Sami are highly over-rated by the media. They do tend to shake batsmen by super fast deliveries now and then but what is the use if they don't get them out or don't win matches for Pakistan. Just pace is not good alone. Rather than praising the express bowlers, I'd tend to settle with mediocres like Nel, Ntini, and Hall if they can get the bastmen out and/or stop the flow of runs.
Dean Jones while commenting about Wasim Akram said yesterday He was the best, if sami or one of these new guys become half as good as him after few years, Pakistan will be really pleased.
I saw the last 2 ODI's on TV and going by those performences, I didn't why Sami and Shoaib were being labelled by some people as the best opening bowling pair. They still have a long way to go b4 they win their country a match in a crunch situation. Yes they are good, but they still need to learn a lot.
[QUOTE] Originally posted by fantastic1: *
**Dean Jones while commenting about Wasim Akram said yesterday He was the best*, if sami or one of these new guys become half as good as him after few years, Pakistan will be really pleased.
That pretty much says it all.
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What Dean Jones really said that "Wasim was the best left arm fast bowler"
Not the best.
I think its unfair that Shoaib and Sami are expectedto defend pathetic scores. We need to realize that we were very lucky in having Wasim and Waqar and its not unfair to expect the same magic from these two.
Waqar when he first started took a lot of wickets through sheer pace and along the way developed deadly inswinger more precisley the inswinging yorker. Wasim on the other hand was just simply too talented. Shoaib and Sami or for that matter not a lot of bowlers in the world are as talented as Wasim was. Plus not only that Wasim was an excpetionally smart bowler. His change of action, the slower ball, going wide off the crease... he was always thinking.
Sami is inexperienced. He has a lot of pace and a lot of people thought that was enough to get batsman out. Well as it turns out, its not. Sami is young and he will learn over the years.
I dont know how many years of cricket is left in Shoaib though. While commentating yesterday Dean Jones said Shoaib told him he is 32. In that case I doubt Shoaib will bowl 5 years from now. Atleast he wont be the same bowler anymore. He has been in the team since 1997. His official age is 28 so I dont know if Jones just heard Shoaib wrong or if Shoaib lied about his age. Whatever the case might be Shoaib needs to start giving more match winning performances now. He has played enough cricket. He is the senior bowler and its time for him to deliver on a regualr basis not just in patches. He is bowling much better then WC and a lot more consistent but they are both not taking as many wickets as they should being the strike bowlers.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by LahoriMunda: *
I think its unfair that Shoaib and Sami are expectedto defend pathetic scores. We need to realize that we were very lucky in having Wasim and Waqar and its not unfair to expect the same magic from these two.
Waqar when he first started took a lot of wickets through sheer pace and along the way developed deadly inswinger more precisley the inswinging yorker. Wasim on the other hand was just simply too talented. Shoaib and Sami or for that matter not a lot of bowlers in the world are as talented as Wasim was. Plus not only that Wasim was an excpetionally smart bowler. His change of action, the slower ball, going wide off the crease... he was always thinking.
Sami is inexperienced. He has a lot of pace and a lot of people thought that was enough to get batsman out. Well as it turns out, its not. Sami is young and he will learn over the years.
I dont know how many years of cricket is left in Shoaib though. While commentating yesterday Dean Jones said Shoaib told him he is 32. In that case I doubt Shoaib will bowl 5 years from now. Atleast he wont be the same bowler anymore. He has been in the team since 1997. His official age is 28 so I dont know if Jones just heard Shoaib wrong or if Shoaib lied about his age. Whatever the case might be Shoaib needs to start giving more match winning performances now. He has played enough cricket. He is the senior bowler and its time for him to deliver on a regualr basis not just in patches. He is bowling much better then WC and a lot more consistent but they are both not taking as many wickets as they should being the strike bowlers.
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I don't think anyone is comparing 2 S to 2 Ws
I think Shoaib is 28, Dean Jones was joking.
And Sami has been around for a while now, since April, he has been a fulltime member of the team, and has been on the sidelines since 2001.
Almost the sametime as when Brett Lee started playing, and he is a much more better bowler then Sami.
The two S's can only bowl 20 overs and within those 20 overs they can only acheive so much. The main cause of failure in the last 2 one dayers was our failure to put up a decent score to start with.
Comparision with the two W's is unfair, they were legends, these guys are good and will improve with time. Who knows they might even acheive the same heights as well.
Agree with LM and ehsan. Sami and Shoaib like most Pakistani bowlers don't use the new ball well, Wasim was the exception. English, Aussie, SA bowlers use it much better getting the ball to seam and swing.
On the other hand, Sami and Shoaib can still be dangerous once the ball has lost the shine and are devastating at finishing off teams...just look at India's problems in killing off NZ.
Give these boys a decent target to defend and 9 times out of 10 they will do the job. let's put the blame where it lies, the lack of class in our batting line up, especially the openers.
You guys are forgetting the misfielding... if we had not misfielded, held on to catches then results could've been different. Once a bowler gets a wicket esp an important wicket his morale shoots up and bowls with more enthusiasm but if he is let down by fielding then his attempts are more of desparate ones.
I think Sami and Shoaib are one of the best(If not the best) bowling duo at present. Pakistani fielders dropped sitters at crucial moments and that was one of the main reasons why Pakistan lost the series not to forget pathetic batting in last 2 games. Pakistan
Cricket is a team game. There is not point blaming these two guys. Had it not been for Sami and Shoaib, Pakistan wasn't even in the series.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Asif_k: *
I think Sami and Shoaib are one of the best(If not the best) bowling duo at present. Pakistani fielders dropped sitters at crucial moments and that was one of the main reasons why Pakistan lost the series not to forget pathetic batting in last 2 games. Pakistan
Cricket is a team game. There is not point blaming these two guys. Had it not been for Sami and Shoaib, Pakistan wasn't even in the series.
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totally agree with you. They are still learning, wish them all the best.
*Nobody is labelling them as the "best bowling pair" in the world for God's sake! I believe the word the media is looking for is "potential". Really. People, That Is All.*
P.S: Off topic, but have you guys noticed that when Sami gets a bit of stick in his ten overs, the sheep on these boards say that he had a bad day, while Shoaib is always criticized by being labelled as an irresponsible *****! Why is that? Somebody please elaborate.
^^ Maybe cause Shoaib has played a lot more cricket then Sami and Shoaib has shown attitude problems over the years and proved to be irrosponsible at times. Sami is young and immature, let him play for 5 years and see if he matures or stays the same.
The biggest problem anybody had with Shoaib apart from his attitude was consistency in his performance. Shoaib would blow away a side with a fiery spell and then look like an ordinary bowler in the next. The other thing was maturity, Shoaib at times tried to hard to just take wickets with sheer pace. It doesnt always work when you have quality batsmen around. Shoaib has recently started using brian while bowling. He is using the slower one often too and its hard to judge when he comes steaming in and bowls a 112 kph delivery.
I think Shoaib and Sami are doing a fine job and with Razzaq coming back in form our bowling is very decent backed up by a couple of quality spinners plus Gul and Shabir.
well, if the comparsion of two S to two Ws is not fair, why in the world this dumbass shoaib opened up his gutter mouth against two legends while team was playing in england earlier this year.... he blamed two WS for not being able to take as many as wickets as he cud...that is how u show respect to ur greatest seniors? imagine bret lee sayin such a words abt mcgrath......how stupid he was when he said that he wud be a far better bowler had be born in Australia...yeah rite like waqar was born in sydney instead of bourewlala to be such a great bowler.....
I guess in one of my earlier thread while comparing wasim versus waqar, i requested many times not to inculde shoaib akhttar;s name in that comparison.... he is not even close to two WS... he just completed his 100 test wickets and he is already 28 yrs old... 2 years from now he will be done with may be 200 test wickets...sami is young and i can see some potential in him...he has nice rythem and a well balanced action... i guess he needs some experience...
but the point is that we as a generation been spoiled by two WS...these two mislead us as well as our cricket system for so long from their shear talent and abilities....they came from no where, with no first class cricket back ground, no training wut so ever, no experince, no basic training at all and yet they captured all of us from the very first day of their emergence....i still remember wasim taking 5 for 28 in his second one day match against australia...i was mesmerized and then it became a habit especialy when waqar came into picture...at that time we all thought we were blessed to have them but as a matter of fact it really destroyed the very basic of our already shaken cricket system.... u cant develop a strong sytem by bringing players directly from net based on shear talent...u shoud never do that... yes we were lucky with wasim and waqar and inzi but then we tried to do it all the times.. ..and each and every time we failed....i guess it will very difficult for all of us to "move on" from two Ws for a while and we will keep comparing every fast bowler with them...and there is nothing wrong with that but lets be more open and fair with new breed.... we have to develop a system on which we can rely to produce well talented players.