Time for Misbah to wield axe on ‘hard-hitting’ failures Fakhar Zaman and Asif Ali

Cricket is arguably Pakistan’s second most favourite pastime after politics, and so it is no surprise that rise or fall in this sport affects the overall mood of the nation.

After a rather decent World Cup in the summer, when the Men in Green narrowly missed out on a spot in the semis because of their inferior run rate, there were calls for a change in the setup so that next level could be reached.

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) obliged by appointing a new coach and a new chief selector in the form of Misbah-ul-Haq.

As all-powerful Misbah assumed the reins, things started to change. Out went senior duo of Mohammad Hafeez and Shoaib Malik from white-ball cricket, while in came the ‘tried-and-tested’ duo of Umar Akmal and Ahmed Shehzad in the T20I series against Sri Lanka. Later, longtime captain Sarfaraz Ahmed was also sacked for his poor batting form.

But by the looks of it, none of the decisions taken are anywhere close to bearing any fruit in the near future for the new regime.

However, one thing the new management did not try to change in the setup they inherited from Mickey Arthur and co are the players who were classified as big hitters, the so-called ‘modern day batsmen’ who were supposedly essential for any playing eleven.

That precious list features just two players though: opener Fakhar Zaman and middle-order batsman Asif Ali.

Both players announced their arrival in different manners at the highest level. Zaman scored a memorable century against India in the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy final whereas Ali guided Islamabad United to their second Pakistan Super League title with a flurry of sixes in the 2018 season.

However, much to the Pakistani fans’ agony, both of their instances’ of heroics occurred nearly two years ago. Since then, we have seen very little productivity from the left-right pair, which brings up the question: why should they get more chances in the future?

After another failure—much to everyone’s expectations—on Tuesday during the second T20I against Australia, Zaman now has just one score of 20 or more in the last 12 innings in T20I cricket, and averages just under seven runs per innings in the last 12 months, whereas Ali has an average of just 10.44 in nine T20I innings in 2019.

There have been questions asked about why these two individuals have been given chances time and again and not treated the same way as someone like Sarfaraz. The answer was that there are no better ‘six hitters’ in the domestic circuit than Zaman and Asif which is why they are in the team.

That argument might have had some legs to stand on but here is the problem: six-hitting is good when a batsman is actually capable of staying at the crease and middling some. He is of no use if the batsman keeps on getting out, which unfortunately has been the case with Zaman and Asif.

Long story short, Pakistan are still the number one T20I team but probably won’t stay there for long, especially if we keep on giving chances to folks who may show up some day but tank pretty much every other day.

With Misbah the most powerful man in Pakistan cricket, there were talks of end to nepotism, with merit, fitness and all those good things becoming the main priorities.

But just months into his new innings, Misbah now has some really tough decisions to make—not that he has not made any till now.

However, letting go two of the dearest duo of Pakistan cricket, the prototypical modern day batsmen, might just be the first logical thing he would do for Pakistan cricket since his retirement post-2015 World Cup.

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The author is a sports journalist based in Karachi. He follows cricket and football passionately.