It can only happen with a Pakistani team. In the same match, the bowlers can bowl as many as 152 dot balls and still concede as many as 367 runs in 50 overs. It happened against Australia in a World Cup match on Friday when there was no ‘bad’ element in Pakistan’s bowling. There were only ‘good’ and ‘ugly’ facets – the two extremes that have defined Pakistani cricket since time immemorial. There are no half measures for Pakistan. On the one hand, they set Australia up for what was worth half the total overs, and on the other, they were hammered for 29 fours and 19 sixes.
And this was after the leader of their bowling department, Shaheen Shah Afridi, produced the best individual bowling figures of this edition: 5 for 54.
It is now well documented that Naseem Shah’s absence is seriously damaging the team, but even then, Haris Rauf’s lack of game awareness and lack of international quality spinners have affected the team’s performance.
For example, Rauf has no understanding of Indian tracks where he bowls either too full or too short (the latter in most cases), which has hurt the team immensely.
Rauf has hit for eleven sixes in four matches and that is more than two sixes per match, which is not a great statistic for a fast pacer who is supposed to intimidate the batters.
He scored 24 in his first over against Australia and 3/83 in 8 overs are not figures he likes to remember.
The legendary Wasim Akram, an expert on the Pakistani show ‘Pavilion’, made a telling comment about Rauf.
“Rauf until he doesn’t play domestic cricket, he will have problems in ODIs. In T20 you can survive because it’s only four overs and you expect batters to attack. But you learn ODI bowling when you play domestic (red ball) cricket. I want to see Rauf bowling six balls from behind (three-quarters) onto stumps,” Akram said on the show.
There were plenty of problems for the Pakistani bowlers regarding the scheduling.
Since the side boundaries are 62 or 63 yards, the best length is fuller and usually on block-hole, which is expected of a fast bowler, who has a sweeping swinging action.
The straight boundary at Chinnaswamy Stadium is 72 yards and yorker length deliveries would not be easy to reach straight.
But Rauf continued to peg it on the shorter side, giving Mitchell Marsh and David Warner enough width to play horizontal bat shot on either side of the wicket.
Speaking of game consciousness, former skipper Misbah ul Haq also had a comment about Hasan Ali that was equally scathing.
Despite knowing that Marsh’s favorite area is the arc between square leg and mid-wicket, because he plays the pick-up shot (pull or tap) quite well, Hasan got his square leg fielder well inside the circle of 30 meters and detained a third man. for the streaky edges.
As for leg-spinner Usama Mir, he was seen bowling with five men on the onside but he never bothered to bowl a googly to the right-handed Marsh.
On a track where the ball doesn’t spin much, the best shot is a straight hit and unlike the Pakistanis, who tried to cut or pull Adam Zampa’s (Iftikhar and Rizwan) deliveries onto stumps (Iftikhar and Rizwan ), the Australians went for the jugular and succeeded.
Bowling balls with the mid-on and mid-off fielder held up and the third man placed on the boundary made no sense when looking at the cart wheel of the two Australian centurions.
Aaqib Javed had spoken just before the start of the World Cup about how Rauf would need a good spinner at the other end during the middle overs to make a difference.
In fairness, good leg-spinners need good captains and in Babar Azam, neither Shadab nor Usama have found a tactician who would plot a wicket-in-out pitch for them as they rush to cover.
Pakistan’s failure as a bowling unit lies as much with the bowlers as Babar’s lack of tactical acumen.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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