I READ the headline ‘Abject showing in Champions trophy: Whatmore eyes 2015 World Cup’ (June 19) with a bitter flavour of sarcasm. Is he eyeing World Cup only and considers Champions Trophy a mediocre tournament or is he eyeing for another flop? We don’'t know who is taking responsibility of the batting collapses in this previous tournament. Yet we are being told to move on.
Obviously all cricketing nations are eyeing the World Cup, however we cannot move on, especially with such a lame response from the cricket highups.
After the South Africa tour, not much hope was attached with this team in any case, especially after the final selection of certain players but they will be falling like a pack of cards, not expected of them. For all enthusiastic cricket lovers, losing to India with a comprehensive margin was the final nail in the coffin after losing to the West Indies and South Africa.
It seems that only Misbah and the bowlers were doing their job by playing diligently, the rest lagged behind with the exception of Nasir Jamshed and Asad Shafiq.
It is hard to understand why Imran Farhat and Shoaib Malik are being repeatedly with no favouring results. It seems that it’s not a matter of a good day or a bad day. It is clearly a question of potential for this type of cricket.
Some new players should be tried. Kamran Akmal is a good batsman and his batting skills took him places more than his wicket keeping skills but he is losing touch. At crucial points in the match when the team needed solid batting, he gave away his wicket.
There is no batsman in the top order who can stay at the wicket, and the situation is the same with the middle order. In the last match he was tried up in the order with no significant change in his performance.
Batting like in a Twenty - 20 match will not bear fruit in a one - day as there is a difference of 30 overs between the two. The technique should be improvised according to the format of the game. Batsmen should stay at the wicket, judge the conditions and read the pitch while keeping the scoreboard ticking in a sustained manner.
Non-stop slogging or batting very slow will not take this team past even 200 runs in a match. They are professionals, they should think about it before anyone else.
ANAS A. KHAN Canada
