Very true. And what makes me happier is that he's not afraid to speak his mind about what contributed to his phenomenal rise as batsman, much to the annoyance of some of the so called enlightened moderated fellows of this country, including the much maligned President and chairman of the board, of whom I noticed Mr. Ashraf was all over him today at the presentation ceremony (talk about hypocrisy, eh?)...anyway, his humility is an inspiration, really. I'm far happy for him right now to bring up the subject of the hypocrisy of our leaders now and let it spoil my mood, but Maranello you couldn't have paid a better compliment to a nicer person. Very pleased for him and for the Pakistan team.

Well Done Pakistan. We have not lost a test game on home soil for a year now. Absolutely magnificant final days play. Kaneria's double wicket maiden was a joy to watch. Well done pakistan. We have come back strongly from the oval fiasco and losing some of our best bowlers.

We have come back well, but there are areas we need big improvements in if we're going to stand a chance in South Africa. Bowling wise Gul and Nazir really stood up in this series, and bowled intelligently more then anything else with a lot of hard work, which was most pleasing to see. Kaneria could have done better, but he'd take this performance at the end of the day. Some how I feel we'll need more then the contribution of these three in South Africa.

I feel the same about our batting too. Yousuf's run of form, if it any continues there (and hopefully it will) alone may not be enough to save us, especially given the form South Africa's bowlers seem to be in, and that they're a much better fielding side then West Indies, and will give him lesser lives than have the West Indies over the course of this series.

Kamran Akmal also needs to have a big one-day series to regain his confidence, in the least he needs to improve his wicket keeping by a matter of 100%. One understands this was not an easy pitch to deal with, but Ramdin, who's much less rated then him, seemed to do okay on it, and its not just this match that he has been under performing in really, pretty much ever since he got that hand injury in a warm up in England, both his batting and his keeping have taken a downward spiral. Some one just needs to go talk to him, if they haven't done it already...I feel its more of lack of confidence then anything.

Good to see the openers doing well though, then again, I'm not sure a home series where both of them have got several starts and converted very few, and then after that, got out playing poor shots outside their off stump, harbours very promising things for tour to a place like South Africa...but some thing's better then nothing. So at least we can hope.

Then you've got inconsistent form of Inzi and Younis which even though I'm much less worried about still is going to be an issue going into that tour. And then to cap it off you've got the ever present debate of 3rd seamer vs. Abdul Razzaq, and Specialist No. 6 batsman vs. Shoaib Malik.

Razzaq bowled better as the series progressed, but he mostly got tail end wickets...and he got only one fifty, but that was crucial as it was a match saving innings and the lesser said about his fielding the better, over all his series was neither here not there...something makes me feel he might keep the likes of Sami and Niazi out of the time a while still, but that is not something I don't have a particularly good feeling about either.

So overall, as I said, if we want to draw/win in SA, LOTS to improve on.

OK folks.. what would be your combined XI from the series as a whole: I suspect Mohammed Yousuf might just squeeze in... but how would the rest of the side look?

How about the following...

Chris Gayle
Mohammad Hafeez
Imran Farhat
Brian Lara
Mohammed Yousuf
Shivnarine Chanderpaul
Denesh Ramdin
Shahid Nazir
Umar Gul
Jerome Taylor
Corey Collymore

Not sure, really... and I've simply bailed out of pruning one of the seamers :-)

No spinners Rachael? I'd drop Taylor for Kaneria. In any case, I've never really seen much point in selecting these end of series best of both sides teams...as much I'd rather see a specialist 6th batsman or 3rd seamer in the Pakistan team right now, it might well be argued we could not have won without them. So as I said, not much point to this combined XIs, IMO.

I agree with you Zainub that we need a 3rd specialist seamer in the team. Iwas seriously hoping to see Niazi and see how he would cope with international standards. He should have been given a game i believe. However, I think Shoaib Malik did well for his no 6 position. Made some useful partnerships and scored. Who else could we have picked? Faisal Iqbal? Shoaib Malik did make a century in a warm up game in England. For South Africa however, all pakistani batsman need to train hard against swinging and bouncing deliveries.Our bowlers wil also need to adjust slightly. Umar Gul is a very good bowler and is our main strike bowler rightnow. Bob Woolmers experience will also benefit us.

For the series against S.A

The other batsmen will perform.. and i dont think we need to be concerend about Inzi or Younis right now they both chipped in throughout the series

Our bowling needs a third seamer.. which could be samiullah niazi, shame we couldnt try him out this series but then Pakistan has always thrown its new boys in the deep end and kept the ones that swam well

Our opening is thank god doing ok, even if it was at home some of the pitches were not excatly made for batting and they performed well.

Kamran Akmal IMO needs to be replaced right now!! since the england tour his keeping and batting are both of the same standard atrocious.


As for people making comments about enlightened moderation, being more liberal than others does not mean you cant stand up and applaud the efforts of Muhammad Yousuf's record breaking efforts. Plus if you feel strongly about religon Zainub start a thread about it, it would be fun.

I shall predict your starter as well
Yousuf said in his post match interview that its all due to his praying 5 times a day, which brings him more focus makes the fielders drop his catches and so on. Thus everyone should convert to Islam to become a better person, and better sportsmen/women. Right so far?

Mr Hutt, you are going into religion now, and it will end up not good.Why make a thread about religion on a cricket forum. Makes no sense. It will only cause trouble. if mohammad yousaf says he is a betterbatsman because he converted to islam then so be it. Why debate about it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. not everyonehas to agree with you!!!

Im not the one who brought up religon in this thread gangsta look above this was posted before my post


I dont have any problem with Yousuf playing better cuz he is a muslim, its his choice and his batting that matters so why should i be debating his choice, im not

Noone has to agree with me... but i dont have to agree with anyone either do i?

As much as Yousuf or Zainub or anyone else is entitled to their own opinion so am i... why make a fuss when i express mine??(which i have not anyways)

I have'nt even said its wrong of Yousuf to say what he did... so why jump on me?

I just thought if Zainub is feeling strongly about this we can have a thread on it and let everyone have their say..whats wrong with that?

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