- The hits just keep on coming
After watching Pakistan lose to West Indies in spectacular fashion only to beat England in the following match by giving them a near impossible target to chase it became clear that the Pakistani side was truly unpredictable. Two matches later it is but obvious that we are instead a broken team with a collection of unmotivated misfits playing selfishly not smartly. The weakest link in the chain remains our batting and to compensate for that our bowling and fielding has to be top notch. Unfortunately that has not been the case. Asif Ali dropped two standard catches in the match with Australia that would have guaranteed a win and it was the tailenders rather than the middle order batsmen who gave us a fighting chance while reducing the losing margin to a respectable level. On Sunday we faced off against India, possibly the biggest match of the tournament, and the problems started from the toss that we won and elected to field. What was the rationale behind us chasing a potentially huge total is beyond comprehension. Early wickets were required to restrict India to a manageable total but a missed run out opportunity that would have surely gotten Rohit Sharma out gave the Indians the start they needed. It was all downhill from there with the first wicket coming too late at 136 after 23 overs during which Hasan Ali was most expensive. Wickets that came much later on didn’t matter much.
Pakistan made a well thought out start to keep wickets even if the runs came slow and gradually build on a partnership. But that all came crumbling down as soon as Babar Azam was bowled by a magnificent delivery with the following three wickets falling in a span of a couple of overs with just nine runs scored. The so-called senior experienced batsmen (Hafeez and Malik) have scored 55 and 0 respectively in the last two games; what exactly is their collective utility in the team anymore? A yawning Sarfaraz behind the stumps perhaps best represents the mood of the side: uninterested and just waiting to go home. With four matches left and almost no chance of qualifying for the semi-finals the team will be home very soon if they keep playing so abysmally.