World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne

[phoenixdesi]

Re: World Cup final 2015 returns to Melbourne

@GoldenAsif

World Cup Final returns to Melbourne and Pakistan will return home early too unless they sort out 2 or 3 batting positions.

The bulk or 60% of the team will be the same that did so well in Windies

#3 remains a problem spot. Harris has potential but let’s wait and see how he does against SA (should also try Umar Amin or Fawad Alam in that position)
Hafeez’s position in the ODI team is debatable imo. He is too inconsistent with the bat and not good enough to occupy a specialist position. can’t have him in the team just as a part-time spinner (though he has done well in that department of late). imo it should be Afridi or Hafeez but not both. Need to find another specialist batsman.

yeah i already laid out my vision in some other threads

for a strategic balance Umar Akmal has to play as a keeper batsman in ODIs and T20s. His keeping is not bad and he can work more on it. The moment you bring a specialist keeper you disturb the balance because we have no keeper who can bat decently…and we end up wasting a spot. For test matches we need a specialist keeper but that is a different topic. My focus is on WC '15.

Afridi does not fit in the WC framework … so i proposed Hafeez to become that lower order all-rounder that we are searching for a while. Abdul razaq is gone and Hammad Azam is unproven. Malik cannot bat outside subcontinent and he does not bowl regularly anymore. So it is Hafeez vs Afridi…well for last 18 months hafeez is bowling much better than afridi. Plus Hafeez success against left handers is becoming sort of legendary…and these days every team has 3-4 lefties…so it is a strategic imperative to have hafeez as a bowler. Afridi has been awfully inconsistent with the ball. Batting wise i will take Hafeez over Afridi any day.

Rest of our batting is extremely fragile outside subcontinent with an exception of misbah and jamshed. I was not super excited with our win in WI..wickets were just like india/pakistan and very slow and we still had to rely on misbah in every match to cross 200. That is not good…we saw what happened in SA and then in England in champions trophy.

We definitely need to check haris..the only player averaging above 50 in our first class. If he has true potential … jamshed, misbah, haris and ahmad shezad will constituent the nucleus of our batting going forward. Hafeez can play better in the lower order.