The deadline for submitting World Cup squads is 30th April 2019 and Pakistan is done with all its international assignments till then. Pakistan's 5-match ODI series against England will start on 8th May, so it is only logical that Pakistan's World Cup squad plays that series.

Considering Pakistan is planning to send the team to England by 24th April for acclimatization and practice matches against county sides, the selectors have 20 odd days to make up their mind about the 15 that will play the ICC World Cup 2019.

Several players, namely Haris Sohail, Mohammad Rizwan, Usman Khan, and Abid Ali built a solid case for inclusion during the just concluded ODI series against Australia.

Inzamam and co. have a tough job now on their hands as a number of players have demonstrated good performances.

Let us take a look at the probable World Cup Squad composition.

In my view, the 15-man squad should comprise 7 batsmen, 1 wicketkeeper batsman, 2 spinners, and 5 pace bowlers.

I believe, the following select themselves:

Batsmen: Babar Azam, Imam Ul Haq, Fakhar Zaman, Haris Sohail, Mohammad Hafeez (if fit), and Shoaib Malik

Wicketkeeper: Sarfraz Ahmed

Spinners: Imad Wasim and Shadab Khan

Pacers: Shaheen Shah Afridi, Hasan Ali, Faheem Ashraf, and Usman Khan Shinwari

This leaves 1 batsman and 1 pacer to be selected.

The options for the 1 batsman are:

Mohammad Rizwan
Abid Ali
Umar Akmal
Shan Masood
Asif Ali

I believe the race is between Mohammad Rizwan who knocked two centuries against the Aussies and Abid Ali, the debutant centurion.

A number of experts and fans have been calling for Asif Ali's inclusion in Pakistan's ODI team. I don't understand how they think. Has everyone forgotten what a miserable failure he was in ODIs for Pakistan?

Sure, Pakistan has not seen a better six hitter since Afridi than Asif Ali, but he is at best a T20 player and does not fit into an ODI team. He cannot bat at 6 because if required to bat before the 30th over, which will be more often than not for Pakistan, Asif cannot fulfill the role. And playing him at 7 means you sacrifice a bowler, which makes no sense. At best Asif is an Afridi who cannot bowl, which basically means he is useless. Pakistan has enough lower order firepower in Imad, Faheem, and Hassan all of whom contribute with the ball as well, so really, Asif is not required.

Umar Akmal and Shan Masood had the perfect opportunity to put on some solid performances and impress the selectors during the ODI series against Australia, but neither did enough, besides looking good in spurts, to push their case.

So it will all come down to whether Pakistan want a reserve opener or a reserve middle order batsman. Both Rizwan and Abid can double up as a back-up wicketkeeper. It will be a tough choice between the two for Inzamam and co.

For me, I would go with Abid Ali for the sheer quality of his innings against Australia. The confidence, stroke play, and timing that he showcased in his debut innings puts him ahead in the race in my opinion.

If Hafeez does not recover from his injury in time, then Rizwan will make the squad as well.

Options for the 1 pacer are:

Mohammad Aamir
Junaid Khan
Mohammad Abbas
Mohammad Hasnain

Abbas could not replicate his test success in ODIs, Hasnain was far too raw despite showing some good pace, and Junaid was way too inconsistent.

Aamir's form has been lacking for a while now, but considering that he is a big match player, he should get the nod for a World Cup spot.

So here is my 15 for the ICC World Cup 2019: Sarfraz Ahmed (c), Fakhar Zaman, Imam Ul Haq, Abid Ali, Babar Azam, Mohammad Hafeez, Shoaib Malik, Haris Sohail, Imad Wasim, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Afridi, Usman Khan, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Mohammad Aamer

My first choice XI would be: 1. Imam Ul Haq 2. Fakhar Zaman 3. Babar Azam 4. Haris Sohail 5. Sarfraz Ahmed 6. Mohammad Hafeez / Shoaib Malik 7. Shadab Khan 8. Imad Wasim 9. Faheem Ashraf 10. Hasan Ali 11. Shaheen Afridi

Aamir will play in place of Shadab whenever the conditions favor seam bowling.

I believe 5 is the best position for Sarfraz and he should bat there throughout. I have also heard that he himself wants to bat at that position.

Hafeez has displayed his big hitting ability on more than one occasion and is best suited for number 6, unless he is unfit in which case Malik should assume that role.

Pakistan will play 2 ODIs against county sides, 5 ODIs vs England, 2 warm up ODIs before opening their World Cup campaign on 31st May 2019 against the West Indies.

In my opinion, it is these 15 players who should be named for all these games and the World Cup!

Pakistan started off the Asia Cup as favorites and ended the tournament as an embarrassment. They had an easy win against Hong Kong, barely scraped through against Afghanistan and faced embarrassing losses against India and Bangladesh.

When you go back in history and think of all those times when Pakistan entered the tournament as favorites, I don't think you will find any tournament where they actually lived up to the tag.

World Cup 1987, World Cup 1996, World Cup 1999, World T20 2010, Asia Cup 2018 and so many more.

At the same time, take a look at the tournaments they won and it was those where no one gave them a chance at all.

World Cup 1992, World T20 2009, Asia Cup 2012, Champions Trophy 2017.

There are so many bilateral series and triseries that have gone the same route for Pakistan.

Why then even give Pakistan the tag of favorites?

We were so confident about the Asia Cup. The fans, the team, the odd makers, everyone thought the tournament was Pakistan's even before it began.

I guess a combination of Pakistan's Champions Trophy win, 'home ground' conditions in the UAE, and Pakistan's recent decimation of Zimbabwe 5-0 resulted in everyone feeling that Pakistan was a great ODI force.

When in fact they really are not.

Pakistan is currently ranked 5 in ODIs and just last year they won a global ODI tournament involving the top 8 ODI sides in the world, but that Champions Trophy win was an exception amidst an abysmal run in ODIs.

If you take a look at 3-year ODI performances of the 10 teams that will be playing the ICC World Cup in 2019, Pakistan's W/L ratio is at the bottom half of the table.


Sure, one can say that Pakistan has won more ODIs than they have lost during this period and this cannot be termed as abysmal.

But delve a bit deeper into this record and you will realize that 26 out of those 32 wins have come against Sri Lanka, West Indies, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Ireland, and Hong Kong, which are teams ranked 8-12 (all below Pakistan) and a team that does not even have ODI status.

That leaves matches against the top 4 ranked ODI teams - England, India, New Zealand, South Africa - plus Australia and Bangladesh.

Take a look!


6 wins in 31 matches over 3 years!

That is a success percentage of 19%.

PATHETIC!

Now if that is not abysmal, I do not know what is.

Plus, 3 out of these 6 wins came in the Champions Trophy last year. Signs of improvement? Maybe so, but then we were blanked 5-0 in New Zealand earlier this year!

So no. We are not a good ODI team.

We recently reached the top in test cricket. We leveled a test series in England this year. We are the current number 1 T20 team. But when it comes to ODIs, we are at the middle of the table with a pathetic record against the top 7 ODI teams.

We have not beaten Bangladesh even once since the last ICC World Cup in 2015.

And here we were thinking we were the favorites to win the Asia Cup.

Quite delusional, aren't we?

This brings me to World Cup 2019.

The round robin format means to qualify for the semifinal a team will have to win, at a minimum, 5 out of its 9 matches. Even then it may not make it. 6 wins might guarantee a spot.

Who will these 5-6 wins come against?

Think about the opposition Pakistan will face.

On one hand you would think about the matches that you should win, i.e. the bottom ranked teams - West Indies, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh.

Pakistan have not beaten Bangladesh in the past 3.5 years and have lost 4 consecutive ODIs to them. And they just scraped through against Afghanistan in the Asia Cup.

Are these 4 games sure wins for Pakistan? Definitely not.

For a minute consider that Pakistan does manage to win these 4 games. It then still has to win 1 or 2 games out of the matches against India, Australia, England, South Africa, and New Zealand - teams against whom Pakistan has won only 6 times in 31 games since 2015.

Do we really think we are among the top 4 ODI teams or capable of being among the top 4 at the ICC World Cup in 2019?

The 1992 ICC World Cup was the best ever World Cup in my opinion, and not because Pakistan won it, but because it was the best format ever used for a World Cup Tournament. It pitted all teams against each other in a round robin format before the top four contested the semi finals.

That is really the ideal format for a tournament that calls itself the "World Cup".

What better way is there to determine the best team in the world besides making them play against each other at least once.

Despite the success of the World Cup in 1992, the ICC for reasons best known to them, decided to change the round robin format and instead introduced the Quarter Finals for the next edition of the ICC World Cup in 1996.

Quarter Finals in a cricket World Cup are as pointless as sunscreen on a cloudy day!

Introducing the Quarter Finals meant that the entire month of group games was a useless exercise to determine which one of the top 8 teams would play the other in a knock out game.

Why not just start the World Cup with the Quarter Finals instead? Everyone knows which 8 teams will make the Quarter Finals, so why make them go through a month of meaningless group games?

The ICC were quick to realize that Quarter Finals did not make sense in a cricket World Cup and corrected the format in the following edition in 1999 with the introduction of the Super Sixes.

That was a really smart format. It ensured that the top 4 teams that qualified for the semi finals did so after playing against the teams in their initial group and the top 3 teams from the other group. It was pretty much a round robin format with the teams playing against (almost) all the other teams.

The same format was used in 2003 and then extended to 8 teams, i.e. the Super Eights, for the 2007 edition of the ICC World Cup.

But then again, for some bizarre reason, the Quarter Finals made a reappearance in 2011.

What a round robin format like the one in 1992, and the Super Sixes or Eights of 1999, 2003, and 2007 ensure is that every single group game holds relevance, and the best 4 teams make it to the semi finals.

The Quarter Finals on the other hand guarantee none of that!

The 2015 edition of the ICC World Cup is also based on the Quarter Finals format, with the top 4 teams from each group qualifying for the quarters.

For an entire month the top 8 ODI sides will take part in meaningless games, which will decide who faces who in the Quarter Finals.

And I can tell you from now, and in fact bet my last dollar on the fact that the 8 teams that will qualify for the Quarter Finals will be Australia, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and West Indies.

Those were the same 8 teams that played the Quarter Finals in 1996 and in 2011.

That in no way ensures that the best 4 teams will play the Semi Finals. Like it happened in 1996, South Africa were by far the best team in the tournament winning every single game in the group stages only to see themselves knocked out in a Quarter Final against a mediocre West Indies team only due to the brilliance of one Brian Lara.

Any team can face such a fate when it comes to the Quarters. They could win every single one of their 6 group games and yet have an off day and see themselves knocked out.

On the other hand, lesser teams, could reach the Quarter Finals by only beating the minnows, and then have their best day and find themselves a match away from the Final.

How unfair and meaningless is that.

Lets talk about Pakistan. They are ranked number 7 in ODIs. We all know that they have a pathetic ODI team, and if they had to go through a World Cup that was based on a round robin format, there would be no way that they would be one of the top 4 sides of the tournament. They would be out of the tournament well before the Semi Finals.

But the way the 2015 World Cup format is, all Pakistan needs to ensure to play the Quarter Finals is a victory against Zimbabwe, UAE, and Ireland.

Easy much?

In fact, Pakistan could use the other games as practice matches to figure out their combination and balance and all that shit.

What a pointless exercise!

From there on, all the would require is some magnificence from a Shahid Afridi or an Ahmed Shehzad and they could find themselves in the Semis or even the Final!

Optimistic much?

Even though.. it holds true for every single one of the top 8 ODI sides.

The ICC might as well ask the top 8 sides to compete in the Quarter Finals and take it from there. What is the point of the month long group games?

Does anyone really think that Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, UAE, Ireland, Afghanistan, or Scotland have any chance of qualifying for the Quarter Finals?

Pakistan's ODI team is so bad that if they play 15 ODI games on the trot, they will highly likely lose 10-12 of those matches.

But in the upcoming World Cup, all they need to do is win two games of cricket and they will be playing the Final.

And they really need to win only one of those because Shahid Afridi will handle the other one by himself.

For Pakistan, the format might be ideal; as a World Cup, the format is pathetic honestly.