Hope springs eternal for valiant Pakistan

Hassan Cheema 17:27 01/12/2015
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  • Pakistan can still be positive despite losing to England in the UAE.

    They may have lost the war but hope springs eternal. Or at least that’s what the team and the fans would like to believe. Pakistan’s futile but entertaining run chase in the final ODI against England, where their run rate was consistently in excess of seven over the forty and a bit overs they played, is now presented as Pakistan’s entry into modern ODI cricket. It was confirmation that the vow they made to separate themselves from the past is being followed.

    After being clean swept in Bangladesh the batsmen supposedly, on the instructions of coach Waqar Younis, decided that the era of rebuilding an innings was over; that they were playing a pre-T20 form of the ODI game even as the world had moved on, and then some. That them and England had to come to terms with how the 50 over game was played in 2015.  

    One Pakistani player has talked about how the vow to attack relentlessly is now the gospel, and told to every batsman when he comes out to bat. And yet Pakistan finished the England series comfortably beaten in the Emirates, as has become the norm.

    The reason for that was the same as the reason why the rebuilding Misbah had become such a constant – and a constant that truly did attract the extremes – in Pakistan’s recent ODI history.

    Prior to the England series Pakistan won the ODI series in Sri Lanka to confirm their participation in the 2017 Champions Trophy, and they did so in a fashion rarely seen from Pakistan. Twice in that series they chased down totals in excess of 250 – Pakistan’s bete noire in recent years – with ease, and the two times they batted first they scored in excess of 285. Yet that came about not because of any particular change in strategy with wickets going down, but because, for once, the Pakistani top order fired.

    The Sri Lanka series finished with each of the Pakistani top three (Azhar Ali, Ahmed Shehzad and Mohammad Hafeez) finishing among the top four run scorers, with only Kusal Perera sandwiching them. The two big chases that Pakistan succeeded in both had big, quick innings from the top order (a hundred from Hafeez in one, 95 from Shehzad in the other, both innings at quicker than run a ball). The reason Pakistan won the first ODI against England had to do with Hafeez’s fine form, and they competed in the fourth ODI because of the start they were provided by the top top three.  

    It may seem a bit too obvious to even point it out but as Pakistanis fought over the scraps of a middle order batsman and a late order hitter the ODI world became even more biased towards teams with quality at the top of their order: Kohli, Sanga, Amla, Warner, Williamson – the who’s who of ODI cricket, beyond pure finishers, is defined by the top order batsmen (AB de Villiers is the exception to every rule).

    For Pakistan that has rarely been an option. Scoring big has been a rarity – since the spot fixing scandal only Mohammad Hafeez has scored multiple hundreds while chasing for Pakistan, thus resulting in the tuk tuk of the middle order, failed attempts at trying to save inning. During this time period only West Indies and Zimbabwe’s top three (among Test playing nations) averaged less in ODI cricket batting second, incidentally these three are the lowest ranked ODI teams as well. It wasn’t even as if their low average was due to them trying to accelerate from the top: only Zimbabwe among the Test playing nations had a worse strike rate for its top three.

    And it’s not as if they never reacted. Pakistan have conceded over 300 bowling first on eleven occasions in the past five years – their response run rate has been 5.53, reasonable enough to compete, but they’ve been bowled out in every one of those matches, only once going past the 46th over even. Thus the 4th ODI really wasn’t the turning of a new page, but rather the continuation of something Pakistan have done consistently in the past half a decade. The worrying thing for them might be that after only eight such instances in four and a bit years, they’ve had three under Azhar Ali already – a man struggling to get to grips with ODI captaincy.

    Pakistan stars Azhar Ali (L) and Mohammad Hafeez (R).

    Thus the decision that the team and Waqar made was long overdue. Pakistan could compete, survive, even win under Misbah but never dominate – it is the top order that does the dominance and Pakistan never really had one. Misbah’s constant support of Hafeez there, and lack of it in the latter years for Azhar is something that will haunt him as the years pass, but right now its these two who are leading the revolution. The change that has been there for Pakitan since the World Cup is that the top order attacks, and continues to attack – a revolutionary strategy which the rest of the world adopted twenty years ago.

    Since the World Cup, which both of them missed, both Hafeez and Azhar are breaking the 40/80 barrier (average of 40, strike rate of 80), something that’s been impossible for any Pakistani batsman to do since Mohammad Yousuf. Even in the era of 50/90, Pakistanis are in a state where they can celebrate 40/80.

    But there is a worry, and it was there in the England series. Despite numerous positive starts throughout the series, there was only one big innings for Pakistan – the contrast with the Sri Lanka series evident in the final scoreline. For all the talk of attacking relentlessly, the two examples of the Pakistan top order failing in this series did provide a window into what Pakistani batsmen had become used to – and where they kept on relying on Misbah’s stability and Afridi’s heroics to salvage the game. One bad start led to 50 for 5 in the 19th over, the other was saved by Mohammad Hafeez playing as he always likes to.

    Thus, another home loss for Pakistan still resulted in hope springing eternal – because that’s better than realizing the incompetence continues.

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