Pakistan's Batting

[Zainub]

Excluding Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, our batting is the most inconsistent of all test playing nations. Discuss.

[adeel_r]

i dont know wat all the fuss is about.this was totally expected.no pakistan team in history has gone down to perth and scored 300+.Our supposedly greatest batting line up of the 80's comprising miandad ,zaheer and co could only muster 67 and 120 odd.So what has happened today is no big deal.Atleast perth is now out of the way and we can finally concentrate on the more sporting venues of melbourne and sydney.Lets hope the team isnt too shell shocked and has the will to put up a fight.All is not lost.

[Zainub]

I don't know what others expected, but if I wake up at 7 pm, 3 days in a row only to watch my side play against the world champions, I expected them to at least put up a fight, at least learn from their mistakes.

I honestly feel batting in Perth is not as difficult as it often potrayed it is. Yes, you have bounce, but its consistent, and you can trust it. Tubby Taylor talked about this on the CH 9 commentary, that on the WACA you can afford to leave a lot of balls on good length and just back of it that you normally in other grounds won't because here they'd bounce over stump height. In fact if you are a predominantly back foot player (which unfortunately non of Pakistan's players are, which perhaps explains why Pakistan teams have always struggled here) you can really proeper in these conditions. As Shoaib, Casper and McGrath proved its the slightly fuller deliveries you have to be wary of in Perth.

Even despite that, there really is no excuse what so ever for us batting like that, pitch or no pitch, our batting was a disgrace, the conditions should not be sighted as an exuse, we were in Perth for 2 weeks, and in each of our innings (2 innings against WA 2nd XI, WA and AUS) our batters have made the same mistakes again, and again, and again. I certainly hope they put this behind them, but I don't think we have been adapting as quickly as I think we should have. How we batted, especially some of the dismissls in the first innings, very little of it was down to the conditions, playing those sort of strokes, we would have been bowled out cheeply on any wicket any where in the world, against any attack.

I expect Pakistan to be criticised heavily, both in the media and off it amongst fans and rightly too. Sometimes that proves to be the right sort of tonic to get the team going.

[Rachael]

I don't think ANYONE should get on the back of the batsmen for their second innings performance: if you'd sent out a team that read Richardson, Atherton, Kirsten, Hussain, Thorpe and Chanderpaul they might have felt duanted at the prospect of batting for more than 6 sessions to save the game (and facing a total of 564).

The game was lost by the bowlers in the 2nd and 3rd sessions on day one. The 1st Pakistan innings was below par.. but not hopelessly so: Salman Butt very much looked the part, Younis Khan did OK, and if Inzi had just moved his feet and set himself to anchor the rest of the innings I think you'd have seen a very respectable total.

You can't criticise a kid like Abdul Razzaq (30 Tests, just 25 years old, a natural no 7 promoted to 6) for feeling the pressure when Inzi and Youhana allow the score to go from 55/2 to 60/4 and when Younis Khan went at 108... the Pakistan no 6 was under the sort of pressure that would lead almost ANY no 6 in world cricket to feel the pressure.. and the pressure on Kamran Akmal and Mohammad Khalil, in that situation (110/6), was more than any youngsters should be expected to manage.

I'd make a few criticisms of the first Pakistan innings.. but that sort of thing can be expected when raw young batting line ups are put under huge pressure. I'd make even fewer criticisms of the second innings: that was ina hopeless situation.

When the coach puts his faith in a bowler-led side (5 man attack).. and they land the batsmen in a near-enough impossible situation... start the blame with the bowlers.

[Shaka]

I agree with you Zainub, the Perth track looked a belter to me, something in it for both batsmen and bowlers...the perfect test match wicket. Salman Butt for instance looked absolutely comfortable although he only made 17 and 9. I said in the other thread that our batsmen compared to other nations look like schoolboys in comparison. I think part of the problem is that we give preference to flashy stroke players who play cavalier innings; which other country would have persisted so long with a front foot slogger like Shahid Afridi as an opener? Imran Nazir comes to mind and various others through recent history.

I've been watching some of our batsmen closely and what has struck me is that three in particular, Taufeeq Umar, Salman Butt and Asim Kamal have looked like they bat with the intent to make a hundred. Imran Farhat and Yasir Hameed and their ilk always concern me because even when they have scored 40 or 50 runs, at no time do I feel they are secure because of the way they play, and their ability to get themselves out without assistance from the bowler. When you watch the class batsmen in international teams, once they are in it's generally quite a job to remove them.

Basically there isn't much doubt that batsmen like Imran Farhat and Yasir Hameed have talent as can be seen from some of their glorious shot-making. But maybe we overlook their flaws such as lack of application, shot selection, laack of discipline...and sometimes downright stupidity.

[adeel_r]

now thats certainly a first.rachael u must be the only person who is putting the blame on the bowlers.381 by aussie standard is nothing and if a team cant even score 300 then it has no right to win a test match.Ian Chappel said on air that if a team picks up 4 wickets in the first session on the first day then in his opinion it is well on the way of winning the test.He then hastily added that with pakistan's batting that is certainly not the case and how correct he was.As for the wicket,i don't know wat it will take for u lot to believe that OUR PLAYERS DON'T HAVE THE TECHNIQUE TO PLAY ON SUCH A PITCH!!!

no team from the sub continent has won at perth and there must be a reason why.Its not as if there is something sinister in the air which makes all the players perform so badly with the bat and for God's sake 2 weeks acclimatising there won't make our technically flawed batsmen into world beaters on bouncy tracks.Its just like if u send some1 to france for 2 weeks and expect him to be fluent in the language.Even the so called mighty indian batting line up performed woefully at perth last year in the odis leading ganguly to admit that u need a totally different technique to succeed there.As for waking up in the morning,many of us did and just because we woke up at seven doesn't mean the team will perform or put up a fight.Being a fan means supporting ur team come wat may.Before the series began i exactly predicted this debacle,infact my post is still on one of the threads and if i remember correctly u(zainub) and maranallo if memory serves me right lept to the team's defence and said that the team will perform at perth and loads of other stuff.How times have changed.The only point im making that this is not the best batting line up produced by pakistan and yet we are angry and upset that it hasn't performed at perth where much more experienced and talented pak outfits have been humiliated.History never lies and always repeats itself.The true test of this team will start now at melbourne provided they are still willing.

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by Shaka

I agree with you Zainub, the Perth track looked a belter to me, something in it for both batsmen and bowlers...the perfect test match wicket.

More relvelent to the bowling than the batting: between lunch and the close of play on day one not even Akhtar, as the senior bowler, kept the Ausses in check, and whilst Sami was marginally better than the rest.. no one made Langer graft for his runs.

Originally Posted by Shaka

Basically there isn't much doubt that batsmen like Imran Farhat and Yasir Hameed have talent as can be seen from some of their glorious shot-making. But maybe we overlook their flaws such as lack of application, shot selection, laack of discipline...and sometimes downright stupidity.

Woolmer's not going to overlook those factors.. and the positive he'll be taking from all this is presumably that by the time the scale of the implosion has sunk in... these youngsters are going to realise that there's a lot more to Test batting than nice strokeplay.

Pakistan didn't go into this game expecting to compete with the bat: they went in desperately hoping they wouldn't need to. Had the bowlers pushed home the advantage of the early inroads.. who knows what might have happened. Thing is.. heads inevitably drop when sessions are lost.. and from lunch on day one onwards.. each session was lost with the ball.. and that builds huge pressure.

[Zainub]

I disagree strongly Racheal, your criticism of our bowling is harsh, we tried everything we could to break the Langer-Gilchrist, Langer-Dizzy (the 2 big parnerships of that innings) but we came out second best to Langer, who was then hitting perfectly all right balls for four. We did everything we could.

Originally Posted by Rachael

I don't think ANYONE should get on the back of the batsmen for their second innings performance

I'm more critical of our first innings batting, less so of the 2nd innning batting, but realistically you can't expect a side being bowled out for less than 200 twice in a match, and end up losing by nearly 500 runs to get away without criticism of their batting.

Originally Posted by Rachael

The game was lost by the bowlers in the 2nd and 3rd sessions on day one.

No Rachael, it was lost by our first innings batting. Do you think we would have lost this test match had we scored 500 in our first innings. No, unless something very dramtic happened. We lost because we didn't bat well enough.

Originally Posted by Rachael

The 1st Pakistan innings was below par.. but not hopelessly so: Salman Butt very much looked the part, Younis Khan did OK, and if Inzi had just moved his feet and set himself to anchor the rest of the innings I think you'd have seen a very respectable total. You can't criticise a kid like Abdul Razzaq (30 Tests, just 25 years old, a natural no 7 promoted to 6) for feeling the pressure when Inzi and Youhana allow the score to go from 55/2 to 60/4 and when Younis Khan went at 108... the Pakistan no 6 was under the sort of pressure that would lead almost ANY no 6 in world cricket to feel the pressure.. and the pressure on Kamran Akmal and Mohammad Khalil, in that situation (110/6), was more than any youngsters should be expected to manage.

The commentators frequently talked about the WACA being a difficult pitch to get started on at, so you can excuse someone getting out for 1-10, like did Inzi and Youhanna in the first inninsg, but once you're set, like were Razzaq on 21 and Khan on 42, and both Salman Butt and Imran Farhat too were well set in the 1st innings when they played at deliveries they could have very easily left alone...you are bound to get criticised. They didn't convert any of those starts, and we were unable to get a decent frist innnings total because they all gifted their wickets away. We were guilty of very poor shot selection, have you see the replay of how Razzaq and Khan got out? You can never excuse those sorts of dismissals no matter how pressure filled the situation is ...and no matter how inexperienced you are...it's all right if people get our to unplayable deliveries..but to get out attempting to slog against Warnie when he's not spinning it (and BTW when he averges in the 40s at that ground)...that is unforgiveable. Those two dismissals triggered the collapse, it opened the flood gates..and for that reason I'll criticise Khan and Razzaq more then any of the others.

[Zainub]

Originally Posted by adeel_r

As for waking up in the morning,many of us did and just because we woke up at seven doesn't mean the team will perform or put up a fight.

I was only trying to suggest that I am, amongst many other fans entitled to complain and express our frustrations if the team under performs. Before this test match I was hopeful we could perform, because as you say "Being a fan means supporting ur team come wat may"...as opposed to backing history and predicting we'll lose. Simply because we have traditionally struggled in Perth, like have other teams from the sub-continent doesn't mean we are not entited to be critisiced for it. Just because defeat was an expected result doesn't make it exusable.

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by Zainub Razvi

The commentators frequently talked about the WACA being a difficult pitch to get started on at, so you can excuse someone getting out for 1-10, like did Inzi and Youhanna in the first inninsg

I'm getting used to your view that these two players can do no wrong.. and whilst I agree that early errors in judging line / length / pace are excusable... not moving your feet (as Inzi did) is just plain poor.

Originally Posted by Zainub Razvi

...but once you're set, like were Razzaq on 21 and Khan on 42, and both Salman Butt and Imran Farhat too were well set in the 1st innings when they played at deliveries they could have very easily left alone...you are bound to get criticised.

If you were talking about players like Richardson, Thorpe and Chanderpaul making those errors then I'd be sympathetic.. but give the guys a break: Salman Butt's a complete novice who has ben thrown off the deep end.. Razzaq's a kid of 25 with just 30 Tests under his belt, and a natural number 7 promted to 6. In an ideal world NEITHER would be playing Test cricket yet because they are still learning the game.

Better and more experienced players than these two have folded under the pressure: doesn't make them bad prospects.. or mean they desserve a lambasting.