Miandad asks batsmen to show responsibility

ISLAMABAD: Former Pakistan batting genius Javed Miandad has called upon specialist batsmen to realize their responsibility and not throw away their wickets cheaply.

In an interview with ‘The News’ on Saturday, Miandad said he got upset after watching leading batsmen throwing their wickets away cheaply in a World Cup warm-up match against Afghanistan.

“When you enter a tournament as big as the World Cup, you need to set your goals and priorities. For a specialist batsman the objective should be not to lose his wicket cheaply.”

Miandad said one-day cricket had a touch of Test cricket where you need to pick your moments.

“For a batsman the requirement is to stay at the wicket and try to contribute 40-50 runs every time the bat. One-day cricket is not like Twenty20s in which you need to attack a bowler all the time, instead you have to wait for the opportunities.”

The former Test great who was the linchpin of Pakistan’s batting in the 1992 World Cup winning campaign, said the best way to treat one-days is to look for runs in the first 10 overs with the field restrictions and then with wickets in hand pump up your run flow in the last 10 overs.

“From the 11th to the 40th overs, try to take maximum singles and twos and hit boundaries when you get loose balls. The middle-order must keep in mind that keeping wickets in hand is very important. Leave the big hitters to take care of the bowlers in the last 10 overs.”

Miandad said he strongly believed the team which adopts this strategy would emerge champions.

“When the World Cup gets begins, I am sure you will not see huge run chases as you saw in the Pakistan-England series.”

Talking about the Pakistan team combination for the World Cup, Miandad said he was surprised to see the return of Wahab Riaz. “He was not on the radar of the selectors and coaches in the last two years. Same is the case with Mohammad Asif who was considered by selectors as a T20 specialist. It means the selectors had no idea about the squad for the World Cup,” he said.

“Without discussing merits and demerits of their selection, my question is why they were not part of the team for the Australia series played in the United Arab Emirates?”

Without naming anyone, Miandad said there should be criteria to pick a selector. “Being a good former player does not mean that you have the right mind of a selector. The mess up made in team selection for the World Cup clearly gives you the impression that the selectors had no roadmap to pick the best combination.

“Unnecessary changes in the last couple of years have proved country productive.”

When asked to comment on the abilities of the Pakistan team’s coaches, Miandad said a foreign coach had nothing to lose whatever the outcome is. “These foreign coaches have no national interest or pride in their mind. So they lack that spirit. They only go by the book. Winning and losing hardly matters to them. History is evident that whenever we won tournaments it

was more an outcome of national spirit and the pride to earn laurels for the country,” Miandad said.