The sooner we forget the humiliation that Pakistan team experienced in the third one-day international against New Zealand the better it will be. The Pakistan bowling combination had done a reasonably good job of restricting the formidable New Zealand batting line-up to 257, and one had expected a good contest. But what we witnessed was abject surrender of our top order to the swing and the bounce of the NZ pacers.
Had the tailender Roman Raees not made 16, our team would have created a new record in the area of humiliation. What made the farce more agonizing was the visible attempt of the Pak Captain to avoid facing the attack, and to expose the tail to the ruthless dominance of the NZ bowlers. Sarfaraz has been a superb batsman and a fine fighter, but ever since he was made Captain, his batting skills have shown a marked decline. A captain who can’t lead from the front, succeeds only in transferring his lack of self-confidence to the whole team. Even batsmen as great as Azhar Ali and Babar Azam have looked shadows of their real talent in this series so far.
Sarfaraz is not made of the stuff great captains are made of. And the only way to help him re-discover his formidable batting skills is to take the burden of Captaincy off his shoulders.
The Coach of the team quite clearly is a man of strong likes and dislikes. His failure to forgive Umar Akmal and Sohail Khan has been very costly in this tour. Akmal brothers and Ahmad Shahzad have a good record in the New Zealand conditions. A team should be selected purely on merit— not on whims.
Let us hope that the fourth one-day international triggers in one or two of our potential stars to rediscover their ability to bounce back, and tables are turned on the Kiwis.
Hasn’t Jason Roy single-handedly destroyed the mighty and invincible-looking Australians in the first ODI, and thereby given England a reason to forget its humiliation in the Test Series?
We need an innings like that.
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