Pakistan v West Indies - Brisbane

[Shaka]

I think I would go for the same team again, we put up a very defendable score against Australia, but needed a bit more from Shoaib Akhtar to win the game. The only change I might consider is bringing in Rao or Khalil for Naved Rana. Azhar Mahmood has a decent batting record against the Windies and he bowled ok against Australia I thought. Rana was hopeless on the day, the only problem is that neither Rao or Khalil are likely to be much better. They are specialist bowlers though and it's probably worth giving one of them a go. Rao has a decent outswinger, Khalil looks a bit stronger. Take your pick.

[Rahul_Dravid_is_No.1]

Is Gayle gonna be playing in the match?

[Shaka]

Not sure. I heard he is struggling to make it.

[Rahul_Dravid_is_No.1]

yeah i heard the same. will be a shame if he cannot play .

Rana naveed must go if pakistan want to win, he can barely field aswell.... wasn't there some other ODi bowlers for pakistan? like some new afridi? didnt he do alright when he played?

is by Rao, is that Ifikthar (best i spelt that wrong). if so, i think you should go in with rao, not khalil. but ill be hopeing you go in with rana naved!

[Shaka]

Well the problem is that neither Rao or Khalil have looked that good either. Rana Naved has bowled well in some games - he also has a good outswinger. Sometimes though the swing goes missing and he looks atrocious. I suppose it's a case of picking the best of a bad bunch.

wasn't there some other ODi bowlers for pakistan? like some new afridi? didnt he do alright when he played?

Not sure who you mean. There are lots of bit's n pieces players but the only genuine all rounders we have for ODI's are Razzaq, Afridi and Malik. If you are talking about Mohammed Hafeez, I rate his bowling but he doesn't look like a ODI batsman. He did score 69 against England in one game, but he got a big fat 0 against the Aussies. I would give him another chance to show what he can do against the Windies in any case. It allows us to play Malik as a specialist batsman.

[Rahul_Dravid_is_No.1]

i was sure there have been some other bowlers tried in the oDI matches. seems i was wrong though

[Maranello]

I think the same team is probably a good idea Shaka, since we do not have much else on the bench. We appeared a bowler light the other day, as Hafeez was underbowled in the first game.

With hindsight, sending Kaneria back was maybe not an inspired move after all, though one which I supported at the time. Our bowling did look toothless at Hobart with no Kaneria and no Sami, and Akhtar off-colour.

For us to click as a one-day team, with no Malik or Sami in the bowling department, we need big contributions from Akhtar and Afridi every game. The other three bowlers, Rana, Razzy and Azhar are all pretty toothless, and stock bowlers at best. Hafeez is a bit of an unknown quantity, should use him more. I don't see the point of bringing in Khalil or Rao Iftikhar instead of Rana or Azhar. There is no guarantee that Rao or Khalil are any better than Rana Naved or Azhar, neither is pacy or has better control. Am I the only one who thought Asif looked a half-decent prospect at Sydney and should have stayed on?

Both Rana and Azhar are better batsmen than the other two, also, one hopes that they don't always bowl as bad as they did the other day! The main argument for Khalil is that he is a left-armer, so offers something different from Razzy-Rana-Azhar, and so he might get a chance ahead of Rana in the WI game, we shall see.

[Shaka]

I too agreed with Kaneria being sent home as I assumed it would be a straight toss up between him and Afridi which is a no-brainer. However, what we both failed to take into account is just how hopeless our current seam bowlers are. In hindsight, we should perhaps have based our hopes on a decent spin attack instead, especially as West Indies aren't the best players of it.

If I was Woolmer, I would bite the bullet and rush the lad back as soon as possible. Yes he'll get pilloried and mocked by over-critical journalists and fans but that's part of the job in this game. The same team with Kaneria replacing either Azhar or Naved would add some variety to the attack. And Hafeez should definitely have been introduced earlier, he's a very handy off spinner!

Regarding Asif, he looked ok, and I would have sent Khalil home ahead of him to be honest. Neither were pulling up any trees in all honesty but they both seemed quite accurate and in ODI's that can often get you wickets.

[Maranello]

I have believed that for the past 12 months or so, our one-day strength has been our bowling. Yes, the batting does collapse strangely sometimes (eg ICCCT S/F), but otherwise, it is quite strong. The bowling has recently been reliant on Afridi and Malik, to stem the flow of runs, take wickets and mix it up a bit. Even as far back as the Pak-India ODI series, it was obvious after the first game that we had the better one-day batting line-up than them. In the first game, we bowled atrociously, gave tons of extras and they scored 325 in 50. They bowled excellently, to a plan, defended well, but we still managed to get to 320, so I think in that game and in many games since, the bowlers have let us down.

At the moment, with no Malik, we are even more reliant on our batting. With Azhar in the team, we have good batsmen till no.9, and tail-end sloggers coming in at no.10 and no.11 (Rana and Akhtar). That is good, but leaves the bowling too one-dimensional.

I agree about Kaneria's recall but somehow I don't think it will happen. Even Sami is allegedly fit, though he does not really deserve a recall as yet, needs some time out of the limelight. Hence the only changes that I expect are minor tweaks; eg Khalil instead of Rana or Azhar.

[Shaka]

Do you think though, that in light of the lack of cutting edge wrt the medium pace bowlers, we need to re-think our strategy and go towards a spin attack in ODI's? We are desperately short of wicket taking bowlers at the moment and with the current attack I think we will struggle to defend perfectly good scores like 270 which we scored against Australia. As you have already noted, it's generally been the spin of Afridi and Malik that has stemmed the run flow in recent games, would throwing Kaneria into the mix not give us a much better balanced attack? Take Rana out and that would give you Shoiab, Azhar and Razzaq to do the seam duties and you'd have Kaneria, Afridi and Hafeez to provide a very useful spin attack. We can dispense with one medium pacer surely?