The fault in our 'stars'

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Albert Einstein was right. In the age of David Warner, Chris Gayle, Rohit Sharma and AB de Villiers, we are expecting our tried and tested failures like Ahmed Shehzad and Hafeez to win us matches against top teams in the world. This is indeed insanity.

Let’s get down to business.

In modern day cricket, going into the match with a negative mindset is like anticipating your defeat even before the start. Edgbaston pitch wasn’t that bad. In high-pressure games we have seen sensible captains winning the toss and opting to bat first. That’s because in such crucial games, pressure is the key and even 5, 6 runs per over required rate in second innings can make you panic any time. Having said that, on a flat track we opted to bowl first.

Now, let’s analyse our bowling options. Although we have shattered his confidence to the core but still, Junaid Khan has played 6 ODI matches in 2017 and taken 8 wickets with an average of 42. On the other hand, Wahab Riaz has taken 2 wickets in 4 ODI matches with an average of 130 in the same year. Comparing these numbers, who will you pick in your eleven? Don’t think it’s that difficult of a decision.

Selecting the leggie Shadab was a brave decision and he proved his worth with 1 wicket for 52 runs in 10 overs. Hopefully we will stick to him in the coming matches.

After a brilliant first over by Amir, where we saw him making the odd ball talk, it’s unbelievable for a captain/coach to hand the ball to a part-time offspinner from the other end.

It was no rocket science that in the prevailing environment, bowling India out was our best bet since it was impossible for our bowling line to contain them. But we opted for a defensive approach and gave vital initial overs to an offspinner which gave Indian batsmen enough breathing space for a steady but important opening partnership.

Even after the fall of the first wicket, when Kohli made it to the crease instead of going after our best available fast bowler, we opted for Imad. Hafeez, with some experience under his belt, didn’t bowl which is a big question mark. Hasan Ali dropped a sitter and then Yuvraj whacked Wahab and Hasan Ali all over the park. At that moment, somebody showed me a stat which said, “Wahab Riaz has conceded more than 80 runs four times in ODIs, the second-most of all-time.” Talk about consistency.

With Amir and Wahab getting injured and rookies bowling the death overs to the best of the hitters in the business, all you could do was pray for survival.

We conceded too many runs and fielded with butter fingers but was that a hindrance for our batsmen to score? Obviously not. We started the chase as if it were the first day of some Test match in England. Despite a big asking rate, we never showed any real intent to chase and played too cautiously. Our wickets fell continuously and nobody looked at ease. Azhar made a few runs but it looked pretty much clear he wanted to cement his place rather than chase any big total.

In the first powerplay (which was of 8 overs) we only made 38 runs, virtually putting ourselves out of the chase by all means. Ahmed Shehzad took 22 balls for his shaky 12 and Azhar Ali played 39 dot balls from a total of 65 balls he faced. Hafeez also batted very cautiously and played 20 dot balls and Shoaib gave away his wicket on a silly run out. Imad looked out of sorts against Pandya. First Pandya thrashed his bowling and then took his wicket on the first ball. Sarfraz didn’t help the cause either. Pakistan’s batting line was looking weak on paper and when it mattered the most, they failed miserably.

With this kind of performance in the very first match in such a stiff tournament, Pakistan have very little hope of progressing, unless they radically change their approach to the game. Can they beat the top-ranked South Africa with this batting and bowling outfit? Highly unlikely, if our batsmen and bowlers do not wake up. With the current approach, we would even find it difficult to cope with the young Sri Lankan team, I suspect.

This is not the first time Pakistan have showed such a poor performance in a high-profile ICC tournament. This won’t be the last if we keep playing some of our old rusty guns despite their repetitive failures.

Scarecrows can’t win us wars, can they?

The writer is a media professional and tweets @nawwabsahab