If one had said at the start of the ongoing England tour that three matches into the ODI series Pakistan would be averaging 360 per innings, the instinctive reaction would have been downright refusal to believe it. Once convinced, one would have found it hard to accept that Pakistan would be winless after these three matches despite piling on an uncharacteristically large amount of runs.
With an unassailable 2-0 deficit after three matches, with the first match at the Oval having been washed out, Pakistan appear to have swapped their weaknesses with their strengths right on the eve of the World Cup.
The talk for Pakistan heading into the World Cup was how if they could post sufficient runs, they had the bowling arsenal to win matches. The batting was the obvious weakness and would struggle to post scores in excess of 300, while the bowling is the obvious, and traditional, match-winner for Pakistan.
Fakhar Zaman
That particular narrative seems to have gone out of the window, with the bowlers conceding over 350 in successive games, having been at the receiving end of the fifth highest ODI run-chase of all-time on Tuesday, after England chased down 359 in less than 45 overs at Bristol.
Given the aforementioned narrative, Pakistan’s narrow 12-run defeat in the second ODI at Southampton actually had a triumphant tone for the visitors. Having given a mammoth 374 to chase, nobody gave Pakistan any chance, until they made the daunting total look likely, and even reached a situation where they should’ve won the match – especially at 345-5 after 47.2 overs, needing 29 off 16 deliveries, which is bread and butter in T20s, a format whose rankings Pakistan currently top.
Failing to win that match naturally puts question marks over Sarfaraz Ahmed’s batting ability lower down the order, given that he went not out till the end of the innings. Similarly, Faheem Ashraf’s much inflated batting billing seems to grow slimmer every day with continued failures. Pakistan’s lack of a genuine finisher stands out even in the team’s best batting performances in recent memory.
Johnny Bairstow and Shaheen Afridi
What, however, Pakistan seemed to have finally addressed is their age-old opening problem. Both Fakhar Azam and Imam-ul-Haq have scored big centuries, and doing so against England in England obviously carries a lot of weightage.
While Babar Azam scored a handy half-century in the second ODI, he continues to fail to score big in series that matter the most. In the Champions Trophy 2017, 8 home-and-away ODIs against New Zealand in 2018, the Asia Cup 2018, and the South Africa ODI series earlier this year, Babar Azam had 3 half-centuries in 23 matches, one of which was scored against Afghanistan. 7 of his 8 ODI centuries thus far have been scored against West Indies (4), Sri Lanka (2) and Zimbabwe (1).
His batting skills and undoubted talent continue to give him the billing of Pakistan’s leading batsman, but his showings in the biggest matches leave a lot to be desired. There’s no better tournament than the World Cup to fix that.
With two successive half-centuries, Asif Ali seems to have put forth his claim to be a part of the 15-man World Cup squad. If he is included, it would be interesting to see which of Haris Sohail, Mohammed Hafeez and Shoaib Malik would miss out.
While Haris has exhibited some form, the latter two haven’t played at all on the England tour so far. It’s likely that they would be played in the final two matches of the series.
The bigger crisis, however, seems to be in the bowling department. While Shadab Khan’s return to the World Cup squad would provide much needed variety to the bowling, the fact remains that every single one of the bowlers has gone the distance against England so far.
Granted that England are arguably the best batting lineup in the world, especially in their own conditions, what is also evident is that not a single Pakistani bowler has managed to do the basics right.
With the fourth ODI (today) and the last one on Sunday, Pakistani management only have a couple of game before they have to make some big calls for the World Cup.
