Saturday 5 February 2011

Pakistan's Batting is Perplexing Me

It's been a while and some of you must have noticed, but the Stani batting scorecards are no longer the bloody sheets with mathematical figures that predictably surprise you. And that they no longer are, is what surprises me.

A while ago, about 5 games in a row of an ordinary Pakistani season went like this in terms of batting:


All tipsy-turvy and crazy the way it's supposed to be.
But now, since the past couple of series, it's like this:

In the series against South Africa earlier, they didn't record a single below 200 score.
In the series against NZ, including the Tests, they've done it only once.

I haven't paid much attention to the current series, and just noticed a few good individual scores, but I think it's time to start believing in miracles again.

And remove the 'Stanis can't bat' tag.

10 comments:

Suhas said...

It's a pretty solid lineup. They have Afridi and Razzaq batting at 7 and 8, and those two actually had a pretty ordinary series against the kiwis. So the top order has been doing its bit for once. Of course, this has much to do with Misbah suddenly finding the form of his life..and Ahmed Shehzad is definitely one to watch for the WC

Stani Army said...

I think bringing in the less flashy players leads to this consistency. The thing with heroes is theyre hit and miss. But with the likes of Rehman, Taufiq, Shehzad and Sahfiq you pretty much know what youre gonna get. It may not be exciting but there's definitely less heartbreak...and less fluctuations in the bar graphs.

Yes it's not signature Pakistan but I think I prefer it.

Anonymous said...

It also helps that for once, Pakistan stuck with the same batting line-up for a good period of time instead of chopping and changing...It gives the batsmen more security and freedom to play their natural game..

Anonymous said...

So, you're backing SA for the world cup, huh? How do you see Pakistan landing?

sunny said...

Pakistan benefits largely from allrounders, so yes, they've got a nice tail too.
It's kind of weird most of their batsmen are doing consistently better, or there's always one or two players who do well of recent, and it might have to do with the fewer shuffling taking place as you mentioned, tracer.
Plus, it's been NZ wickets and those are surely less easier to bat on than those in India, so Pakistan can be a bit satisfied.

sunny said...

Stani, glad to see you back! :D

Now, that's an interesting point you've made. In this list of less flashy players Hafeez has astonished me a great deal; in all my cricket watching career so far I'd only remembered him as a crappy player but he's become quite good all of a sudden.
I like this new Pakistan but I'll still miss the Signature Pakistan if it were to go permanently (which I doubt though).

sunny said...

Yup, the Saffers for the WC Sid, but I won't mind a Stani win.

They're actually in with a decent chance, and I'd say that largely judging from the past two ODI series they've had. A semi final spot at least, I reckon.

Anonymous said...

My semi final predictions are SA, SL, India and Australia.

But, we'll see.

ten cricket live streaming said...

pakistan at this moment is on a revival phase n hope they get back to the days of anwars and sohails

india vs australia live cricket streaming said...

this team was a bit stable under Inzamam.. since he left things have gone wrong....