Watching cricket with the tongue in your throat is not the best way to enjoy a game. Close, competitive and entertaining games do have their own charm and value when a challenging target is set and a chase is on. Every now and then comes a moment that a match would swing one way or the other depending on the situation, and that is just normal.

An exciting finish and a nerve-tickling encounter then brings the match to a stage from where it becomes compulsive watching.

Pakistan playing a one-day game these days gives me a kind of feeling that I am on the edge of my seat and not really comfortable as they bat first or offered a run chase.

In recent times they have a reasonable and respectable record playing at Test level, especially when playing on docile pitches of the UAE which is now a sort of their home base against any international team. But when it comes to facing the same opponents on the same tracks in a one-day game, they have been found wanting.

Prior to the ongoing World Cup they suffered the ignominy of losing first to Australia in the ODI series and then later against New Zealand. But in Tests against them they did, however, play quality cricket, inflicting a whitewash on a strong Australian team and managing a drawn series against the Kiwis which was creditable.

I would have expected them to perform a lot better in the World Cup but it seems they have not learnt from their basic mistakes and haphazard choice of players for a particular match. It worries me that time and again they keep on committing the same mistakes which is not a mature thing to do.

Their inept batting is constantly letting them down. A good start in an innings for any successful team is very important to build on to. Unfortunately, we have not been able to sort that problem out which has put the middle-order under great pressure. In an event like this there is no scope for experiments but Pakistan has just been doing that while choosing the team for any match.

I fail to understand the purpose of flying out Nasir Jamshed as replacement for experienced Mohammad Hafeez. Nasir has been out of form for long and has a flawed technique for an opener. He often dishes out the moving ball to slips and gully and gets out fending the rising deliveries to short leg.

All successful batsmen who bat in the frontline know the value of survival in the middle and the advantage of converting their twenties into forties, fifties and more. For Pakistan Hanif Mohammad, Majid Khan, Mushtaq Mohammad, Javed Miandad, Inzamam-ul- Haq and Mohammad Yousuf were top men of their trade because of this quality in their batting.

The same holds good for great players like Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Clive Lloyd, Rohan Kanhai, Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar, Rahul Dravid, Steve Waugh, Allan Border, Mark Taylor, Martin Crowe and Graeme Smith to name a few.

And that is what we need from Haris Sohail, Sohaib Maqsood and Umar Akmal, all of whom lack concentration as well as the ability to play long innings. The late middle order is as much disappointing as we witnessed in the matches which Pakistan recently played, putting the tail-enders under pressure to perform the rescue act. They were lucky on Sunday that Wahab Riaz played a sensible knock to get Pakistan to a reasonable total against Zimbabwe along with the ever reliable Misbah-ul-Haq.

So far Pakistan team’s choice for matches have been abysmally poor. They need to beef up their batting by including Sarfraz Ahmed as wicket-keeper/batsman rather than relying on Umar Akmal’s butter finger approach with the gloves. And I also feel they must get Younis Khan back in the team. He can’t do any worse than the rest of them.

You can not always expect from the tail to bail you out or Mohammad Irfan and Wahab Riaz to bring you back in the game with their four-wicket hauls. It should be a combined effort with bat and ball and by the fielders who instead of attacking the ball and picking up cleanly fumble at every opportunity and thus frustrate the bowlers and the captain.

Upcoming matches against the UAE, South Africa and Ireland have got to be taken very seriously to survive in the mega event or Pakistan should forget about making the quarter-finals.

Published in Dawn March 3rd , 2015

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