Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Pointless!

The day before the match, Geoff Lawson stated that he wants Pakistan to beat India by 150 runs.

What was the point of that statement?

Did Lawson not know that Pakistan may not win the toss and field first instead?

Who does Lawson think he is, Shoaib Akhtar? Only he has the ability to say things he would do and then end up not doing them.

Was Lawson underestimating India or was he only being over confident of Pakistan's chances?

Lawson was right about the victory margin though - a 140 run victory. Albeit, for the other team. India!

Lawson's statement was nothing but pointless.

There were a lot of other pointless things.

Going into the match, Pakistan boasted of a 12 match winning streak. Pointless.

Lawson actually talked about equalling Australia's 21 match winning streak. Pointless.

Pakistan's fielding and catching was worse than a domestic side playing in Cambodia. Pointless.

Sohail Khan sat on the bench as Rao Iftikhar bowled to Sehwag & Co. Pointless.

39 extras. Pointless.

Younis Khan bowled the 50th over and gave away only 2 runs. Pointless.

Kamran Akmal hit a full toss straight to mid on. Pointless.

Younis Khan faced 1 ball more than he did against Bangladesh. Pointless.

Mohammad Yousuf was caught plumb in front and then looked at the umpire as if he had no idea how that was out. Pointless.

Shoaib Malik scored 53. Pointless.

A day before the match I did a the "Real Role Play" write up where I talked about what each Pakistan player would need to do to challenge India. Go back and read that again and you'll see that none of them did anything remotely close to that.

Somebody said to me that it wasn't that Pakistan played badly, but India played well.

I disagree.

There is no doubt that India is the stronger team and Pakistan was never going to challenge them after giving away 330 runs.

Sure Sehwag and Gambhir batted really well and Yuvraj was good in the middle, while Raina finished the innings with some big hits, but it was really the opening partnership that laid the platform for such a big total.

The opening partnership was 152 runs more than it should have been and it lasted 21 overs more than it should have.

The culprit was Younis Khan who dropped Gambhir in the very 1st over of the match.

Younis dropped Gambhir again in the 9th over when the score was 64.

Then Akmal joined in the fun and dropped Sehwag in the 13th over when the score was 91. Sehwag scored 45 more runs.

The way India's middle to lower order batted, Pakistan could have restricted them to a lower total, only if they had held onto their catches.

I say drop the dropper please as Younis Khan's position in the ODI team is truly pointless.

Make your pitch on this post...



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4 Pitched:

  1. Gaurav Sethi said...
     

    Lawson is lost. Malik's at sea. Team selection is the least of Pak's problems. Wonder how long before Imran Khan and co start lambasting Lawson. Guess they will restrain themselves this time.

  2. Unknown said...
     

    i honestly dont think india played all that well

    pakistan just played horrible horrible cricket

    i personally feel the time has come to drop akmal.. hes dropped far too many catches to merit his selection on the basis of being a good wicketkeeper batsman... i also feel malik should either open or come at no.3 dropping younis down to 5 (or dropping younis in favor of a specialist opener)

    lets see if pakistan learns from its mistakes

  3. Viswanathan said...
     

    Tri-series- utterly pointless.

  4. Q said...
     

    Ott, I thought u said it had meaning cos it would have an impact on the ODI rankings.

    Saqib - I agree, Pakistan were very bad on the field.

    Akmal is a dropper, but he has won a lot of matches for Pakistan with the bat.

    Younis needs to get a kick out of the team. That will make way for an opener as well and Akmal can bat lower down and concentrate on his keeping rather than his batting.

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