Pakistan’s 0-3 defeat in the Twenty20 series against England has raised a question mark on the team’s chances in the ICC World Twenty20 next year in India.
After winning the Test series against England (2-0) at the same venues, more convincing wins in ODI and Twenty20 series were expected from Pakistan. But as usual, Pakistan’s defeats occurred because of the failures of the batsmen.
There was a clear lack of unity and fighting spirit. They lost the matches when win was just a few steps away. Pakistan batsmen score 20, 30 runs easily, but when they are set and can play big innings, they throw their wickets with stupid shots.
Responsibility to finish the game was not seen. In the last T20, Shoaib Malik who took Pakistan into a winning position threw his wicket when just two runs were required off two balls.
The way they lost the game in the Super Over was very disappointing. The game should not have gone to the Super Over, but immaturity from the mature players dragged Pakistan to sixth position in the ICC T20 Rankings. Pakistan started the Twenty20 series with the second position. It was Pakistan’s sixth successive defeat in ODIs and T20Is.
After losing every game and finally the series, Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi said: "Credit to England; they did well. We played well, too, but missed an opportunity again."
Afridi accepted that there were some problems in the team, "which we have to sort out," but how and when, he didn’t disclose.
Instead of praising other team’s performance, the captain should concentrate on the weaknesses of his players. Afridi, Hafeez, Ahmed Shahzad, Umar Akmal are not new in the game. They have a lot of international experience, so they should not have any excuse, particularly in favourable conditions.
Dejected head coach Waqar Younis also admitted that some of his talented players were not learning. About Umar Akmal, he said he had no answer.
"We have been playing defensive cricket for too long; it will take time to get out of this mindset," Waqar admitted.
The problem with our team is clear. We have simply failed to bring in new talent. There is no lack of talent in the country. We need to discover in time who can replace Misbah, Younis, Afridi and others.
Running between the wickets is one of the biggest problem for Pakistani players. In 21 one-day internationals this year, 34 Pakistani batsmen got run out. More importantly, they are not learning and repeating their mistakes.
If Pakistani batsmen can’t score on UAE’s pitches, how will they survive in Australian or English conditions?
Except Shoaib Malik, no batsman reached three figures in the series. It shows how miserably our batsmen failed. Afridi (53), Rafatullah Mohmand (39) Muhammad Hafeez ((33), Ahmed Shehzad (32), Sohaib Maqsood (26) and Umar Akmal (26) disappointed the fans.
It is our bad luck that Pakistan’s domestic structure is not up to international standard and has failed to provide quality players who can compete with the world’s top players and cope up with the pressure of crunch situations.
The players who score record numbers of runs and take wickets regularly in domestic cricket fail to deliver when chances are provided to them at the international level. Rafatullah Mohmand is the latest example.
Waqar should teach our fast bowlers the skill of swinging the new ball for which he was known in the cricketing world. Our pacers only bowl fast and short. The era of effective yorkers seems to have ended with the careers of Wasim and Waqar. The two Ws got lots of wickets with their lethal yorkers, especially against the tail-enders.
Pakistanis were the inventors of reverse swing, but now our bowlers rarely use this weapon. Waqar himself was famous for his toe crushers, so why has he not made efforts to teach our youngsters the method of reverse swing!
A conditioning camp may be helpful for the players to improve their fitness and skills, but it’s not a permanent solution as only a limited number of players can be invited to the camp. And they, too, will get training for a limited period. The management should have a plan for all the domestic players.
England completed their tour of the UAE with a dramatic Super Over win against Pakistan that sealed a 3-0 Twenty20 series whitewash.
The win in Sharjah completed an excellent limited-overs tour for England. After a 2-0 Test series defeat, they came back with a 3-1 win in the ODIs and then 3-0 in T20s. The victory was England’s sixth consecutive Twenty20 success. They have two more T20s against South Africa in February before the World T20 in India next year.
England’s J Vince remained the top scorer of the T20 series with 125 runs at an average of 41.66. Shoaib Malik scored 101 runs for Pakistan, averaging 50.50.
England’s Liam Plunkett took six wickets in the T20 series while after a long time Shahid Afridi was in good bowling form and took five wickets.