How will Pakistan fare in ODI, T20 series against England?
They have won two of the 5 Test matches they have played in England this summer. Yet, the Pakistan cricket team failed to pose as a potent threat. Their wins against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 Cricket Board believes that the current crop of players required their support. Consequently, support is what they got in Lahore.
Pakistani selectors feel that the scenario will be completely different when the teams don coloured clothing ahead of the T20 and One Day series starting from next month. After the fourth test against England beginning from Thursday, Pakistan will play back-to-back T20 matches at Cardiff in the first week of September. Both teams will then clash in a five-match one-day series at Chester-le-Street from September 10th.
The national selectors announced a 16-member Pakistan squad for the series and as usual, they bungled by making the announcement before the final test. Yasir Hameed, who showed a lot of promise with the bat and skills in the slips, was dropped for the One Day Internationals and the axe is likely to affect his batting if he plays in the final Test, commencing on Thursday.
They however retained Kamran Akmal a.k.a butter fingers. Akmal has no threat to his place in the side since the management dispatched Zulqarnain back home, after he scored 88 runs on his Test debut and got a minor finger injury. http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Danish-Kaneria-c1314 has not been considered for the 5 One Day Internationals while Raza Hassan, the untested left-arm spinner would be sent back after the tests. The player is expected to go away untested and without any opportunity in the side matches as well.
Notable omissions from the test side besides http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-Afridi-c2482 returns to the side as skipper.
Tanvir Ahmed, the most successful bowler in Pakistan’s domestic circuit last season could have stayed with the side yet the selectors opted for the over-the-hill Shoaib Akhtar, who bowls less and rests more. While Imran Farhat and Shoaib Malik deserved to be axed, Umar Amin could have given Abdul Razzaq, Fawad Alam and Mohammad Hafeez a run for their money with his all-round skills. As a left-handed batsman, he would have done what Fawad Alam has failed to do in his brief career, i.e. to score runs at a rapid pace.
One fails to understand why Fawad Alam has been recalled to the side for the limited overs game. He scored a century on his Test debut last year as an opener, yet remains an ordinary player in One Day Internationals and tests. Alam is not a pinch hitter in a side which rarely catches the ball and his fielding is likely to suffer with some potent lessons from Kamran Akmal. Yet he continues to play One Day Internationals and tests, when he should only be playing test cricket.
Selectors, however, ignored former captain Younis Khan for the One Day Internationals despite lifting the ban on his representation for Pakistan. Sources close to the board confirm that Chairman http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ijaz-Butt-c64128 is still angry at Younis for leaking confidential video tapes of the in-camera session of the Pakistan Cricket Board‘s inquiry committee. Butt is also furious at Younis‘s lawyer Ahmed Qayyum for blaming the board for delaying tactics. Had the lawyer not been as hot head as he turned out to be, Younis would have been part of the national squad once again.
The chairman of Pakistan’s selection committee http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Khan-c71319, when asked about Younis’s exclusion claimed that although the former captain’s case was discussed, his name was not cleared by the PCB, which was the chairman. The former captain last represented his country in February 2010 when he played against Australia in the One Day series.
Mohammad Yousuf also makes a comeback to the side after his retirement earlier this year. He will also be part of the T20 squad because the selectors decided that the same pool of players will be utilised in both forms of the game. They failed to realise that both formats are different in many aspects, and their decision might backfire during the series.
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