Review of Pakistan’s performance in ICC Cricket World Cup 2011-Part Two
Afridi also blamed his batsmen for the loss in the semi-final and some inconsistent performances in the pool matches.
The skipper believes that batting is all about partnerships and the Men in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Green-c60723 failed to build partnerships at crucial stages of the tournament. He claimed that his team did well whenever the batsmen were able to construct notable partnerships.
"We were struggling to build partnerships right through the tournament. The matches where we had partnerships we made good scores. We couldn't make partnerships against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750; we struggled and played some bad shots at the wrong time as well”, Pakistan’s
limited overs captain said.
The positive for Pakistan cricket fans was the fact that Asad Shafiq and Umar Akmal looked promising and composed, even in the most difficult circumstances. This is a good sign for Pakistan as both these youngsters are expected to bear the burden of Pakistan’s
batting in the years to come.
After the World Cup, Afridi also expressed his satisfaction over the performance of some of the youngsters in the team.
He admitted that no cricket analyst gave Pakistan a chance in the World Cup but they did well and proved to the rest of the world that they are still a force in international cricket and no one can underestimate them.
He said that results do not matter much if a team plays well and claimed that Pakistan played brilliantly throughout the World Cup and praised his men.
Afridi stated, "I am proud of my team and the boys have done a great job in this World Cup. A few of the youngsters are very promising and we played as a unit. Winning and losing is something different but we really played really good cricket and no one
was expecting us to play cricket like this. As captain I'm very happy".
Fielding has never been Pakistan’s strength and the same was the case in the mega event as they dropped a lot of catches at crucial moments and allowed the game to slip away from their grasp on more than one occasion.
Pakistan’s wicketkeeper, Kamran Akmal, has been under a lot of criticism after the World Cup because of his poor work behind the stumps. He dropped some crucial catches throughout the tournament and his keeping was surely not of international standard.
Kamran has performed exceptionally for Pakistan in the past, especially with the bat but his keeping has gone down considerably in the last couple of years, for which http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 had to pay a huge price in all the formats of the game.
The need of the hour for Pakistan is to find someone who is reliable behind the stumps and can also contribute with the bat.
Faisalabad’s wicketkeeper, Mohammad Salman, has replaced Kamran for the limited overs series against the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760. He has been performing very well in domestic cricket since the last decade and Pakistan’s team management would be hoping that he can replicate
his domestic form at the international level.
All in all, if we take out their fixture against the Black Caps, Pakistan’s team did well in the World Cup against all odds and credit goes to the Cornered Tigers to leave behind all the controversies they faced last year and put on a good show for their
fans in the global event.
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