Pakistan's opening conundrum

[Saj]

Author: marooned
Date: 28-01-05 08:04

Pakistan's opening conundrum
S Rajesh

January 28, 2005

Pakistan's top-order woes
Pakistan haven't had too much cause for celebration on their tour of Australia, but one of their few gains has been the emergence of a quality opener. Salman Butt did enough in the three Tests against a quality bowling attack to suggest that Pakistan may have at last found a possible replacement for Saeed Anwar. Butt scored 225 runs in the three Tests, including a fluent 108 in the final match, at Sydney.

Over the last six years, Pakistan's batting has generally been their Achilles heel, and the problems have started right at the top of the order, with the openers being changed at the blink of an eyelid: in the last 54 Tests, Pakistan have tried out a shocking 27 different opening pairs – that's a run of exactly two matches per pair. As the table below shows, Pakistan's opening pair has been by far the least stable of all Test-playing nations: even Zimbabwe and Bangladesh have given their openers a marginally longer stint, as have India, despite their struggles at the top of the order in the last few years.

On the other hand, Australia, Sri Lanka, South Africa and England have all had fairly settled first-wicket pairs, and the numbers show why: each of these four teams average more than 40 per opening partnership, with Australia (50.29) leading the way.

Opening stats
since 1999 Tests, Different pairs, Average p'ship, Matches per pair
Australia 74 6 50.29 12.33
England 75 11 43.89 6.82
Sri Lanka 60 9 41.19 6.67
South Africa 68 13 49.91 5.23
West Indies 69 17 36.12 4.06
New Zealan 54 18 35.30 3.00
India 62 20 37.06 2.82
Bangladesh 36 13 21.42 2.77
Zimbabwe 44 16 21.75 2.75
Pakistan 54 27 38.77 2.00


Pakistan have generally struggled to find a successful combination, but there was one pair which lasted a relatively long time, and achieved a fair degree of success – Imran Farhat and Taufeeq Umar played together 15 times and ran up 754 runs at an impressive average of 50.27 per innings. Their golden run came in the home series against South Africa in 2003-04, when they put together three consecutive hundred-plus stands. However, Pakistan's selectors then showed the kind of impatience that has prevented the side from acquiring a settled feel – Umar had a lean series against India, and instead of looking at it as a brief slump and persisting with him, he was promptly dumped. Umar wasn't the first to be gven the short shrift after a brief sparkle – Mohammad Hafeez, Wajahatullah Wasti, Naved Latif and Imran Nazir have all been dubbed the next big hope for Pakistan's top order, only to be discarded within a year. Will Salman Butt buck the trend?



Re: Pakistan's opening conundrum
Author: tahaiqureshi
Date: 28-01-05 11:39

i give up now..

two years is too tiring..this country and the team will never learn..
lets all just give up hope




Re: Pakistan's opening conundrum
Author: MenInGreen
Date: 28-01-05 11:46

No lets not give up hope - infact, its our duty to keep these idiots on their respective toes - otherwise they will do to cricket what they the Benazir/Nawaz etc have done to the country ( This isnt a political statement, just for illustration only !)

I know people here feel that its not good to chop or change but then NO players should feel that since the opening slots are up for grabs, they have god given right to hold on to them - Cricket is forever, its not ending this year - this is an ongoing process and at one point, they will emerge the perfect 100% good opening pair - until then we keep on trying....

Regards

============================
The Barney


Re: Pakistan's opening conundrum
Author: tahaiqureshi
Date: 28-01-05 11:58

i agree MIG..

but i was just being sarcastic in a way




Re: Pakistan's opening conundrum
Author: MenInGreen
Date: 28-01-05 12:04

I know, no problem

Regards

============================
The Barney



Re: Pakistan's opening conundrum
Author: MenInGreen
Date: 29-01-05 14:50

bump....get the drift people ?

============================
The Barney

Re: Pakistan's opening conundrum
Author: Amit Mishra bowls a wrongun
Date: 29-01-05 14:56

What does Taufeeq Umar have to do?

[Amir]

"I know people here feel that its not good to chop or change but then NO players should feel that since the opening slots are up for grabs, they have god given right to hold on to them - Cricket is forever, its not ending this year - this is an ongoing process and at one point, they will emerge the perfect 100% good opening pair - until then we keep on trying...."
-MIG

I was just reading this over and found it interesting 27 pairs in 54 tests, which has increased to 33 in 60 now I think? And just to think Butt scored 225 runs in three tests! That is amazing espicially against the best team in their own backyard.

MIG posted this 11 months ago and I do not think one would imagine this continuing after Hameed and Butt put up a 100 stand and were not given another chance in the next test.

[Shehzad]

Ok first of all the Shahid Afirdi Gilchrist has wrecked the position of an opener our guys are confused, should they come out guns blazing or steady the ship and make a partnership? that's where we have gone wrong. In any case we haven't given guy's the position to work on take Mo Haf he's been up down and in/out no permanent position BOBBY guy's has confused our guy's that's the preeeeeoblem u kno

[Easa]

i think we need to have one opener who goes all guns blazing (Shahid Afridi) and one playing drives and trying to bat throught the innings (Butt). I think we should stick with these two in odis as they are well proven and they played especially well in India!

[Waqar's inswinging yorker]

Author: marooned
Date: 28-01-05 08:04

Pakistan's opening conundrum
S Rajesh

January 28, 2005

Pakistan's top-order woes
Pakistan haven't had too much cause for celebration on their tour of Australia, but one of their few gains has been the emergence of a quality opener. Salman Butt did enough in the three Tests against a quality bowling attack to suggest that Pakistan may have at last found a possible replacement for Saeed Anwar. Butt scored 225 runs in the three Tests, including a fluent 108 in the final match, at Sydney.

Over the last six years, Pakistan's batting has generally been their Achilles heel, and the problems have started right at the top of the order, with the openers being changed at the blink of an eyelid: in the last 54 Tests, Pakistan have tried out a shocking 27 different opening pairs – that's a run of exactly two matches per pair. As the table below shows, Pakistan's opening pair has been by far the least stable of all Test-playing nations: even Zimbabwe and Bangladesh have given their openers a marginally longer stint, as have India, despite their struggles at the top of the order in the last few years.

On the other hand, Australia, Sri Lanka, South Africa and England have all had fairly settled first-wicket pairs, and the numbers show why: each of these four teams average more than 40 per opening partnership, with Australia (50.29) leading the way.

Opening stats
since 1999 Tests, Different pairs, Average p'ship, Matches per pair
Australia 74 6 50.29 12.33
England 75 11 43.89 6.82
Sri Lanka 60 9 41.19 6.67
South Africa 68 13 49.91 5.23
West Indies 69 17 36.12 4.06
New Zealan 54 18 35.30 3.00
India 62 20 37.06 2.82
Bangladesh 36 13 21.42 2.77
Zimbabwe 44 16 21.75 2.75
Pakistan 54 27 38.77 2.00


Pakistan have generally struggled to find a successful combination, but there was one pair which lasted a relatively long time, and achieved a fair degree of success – Imran Farhat and Taufeeq Umar played together 15 times and ran up 754 runs at an impressive average of 50.27 per innings. Their golden run came in the home series against South Africa in 2003-04, when they put together three consecutive hundred-plus stands. However, Pakistan's selectors then showed the kind of impatience that has prevented the side from acquiring a settled feel – Umar had a lean series against India, and instead of looking at it as a brief slump and persisting with him, he was promptly dumped. Umar wasn't the first to be gven the short shrift after a brief sparkle – Mohammad Hafeez, Wajahatullah Wasti, Naved Latif and Imran Nazir have all been dubbed the next big hope for Pakistan's top order, only to be discarded within a year. Will Salman Butt buck the trend?



Re: Pakistan's opening conundrum
Author: tahaiqureshi
Date: 28-01-05 11:39

i give up now..

two years is too tiring..this country and the team will never learn..
lets all just give up hope




Re: Pakistan's opening conundrum
Author: MenInGreen
Date: 28-01-05 11:46

No lets not give up hope - infact, its our duty to keep these idiots on their respective toes - otherwise they will do to cricket what they the Benazir/Nawaz etc have done to the country ( This isnt a political statement, just for illustration only !)

I know people here feel that its not good to chop or change but then NO players should feel that since the opening slots are up for grabs, they have god given right to hold on to them - Cricket is forever, its not ending this year - this is an ongoing process and at one point, they will emerge the perfect 100% good opening pair - until then we keep on trying....

Regards

============================
The Barney


Re: Pakistan's opening conundrum
Author: tahaiqureshi
Date: 28-01-05 11:58

i agree MIG..

but i was just being sarcastic in a way




Re: Pakistan's opening conundrum
Author: MenInGreen
Date: 28-01-05 12:04

I know, no problem

Regards

============================
The Barney



Re: Pakistan's opening conundrum
Author: MenInGreen
Date: 29-01-05 14:50

bump....get the drift people ?

============================
The Barney

Re: Pakistan's opening conundrum
Author: Amit Mishra bowls a wrongun
Date: 29-01-05 14:56

What does Taufeeq Umar have to do?



taufeeq umar is the answer!

[pakistani pride]

Nah yaar he isnt up to the mark.

Salman Butt seems ok but who will open with him. Shoaib Malik looks more like a short term opener but he might prove all of us wrong

[Amir]

There is rust and then there is Taufeeq Umar. If you are struggling against amble pace on a flat deck in India(not spin, pace) then you really have questions to ask yourself. It was so digusting watching him play, liek a school boy. Drives were not off the beat of his bat, he was getting edges and he was playign and missing alot(and this is test cricket mind you, not ODI!). To top it off, he has now lost his off stump against England and is worst off than Hameed.

[fair_play]

In India, he played with hardly any cricket under his belt.

Cant judge a man on such a day - would have been something special if he had managed a better innings.

[Amir]

Hardly played? He had a warm up game, what more does he want? He had equal opportunity as Salman Butt or any of the other openers. Like I said I would not mind if he made 20 or 30, but had to be a confident one. This Taufeeq looks out of all sorts, does not know where his off stump is, chasing wide ones and he got more than enough chances. He got 2 tests, Butt got one.

I think he has had his chances just has not proved himself. People keep pressing for his inclusion but he is not very successful at domestic level. If you cannot be successful at Paksitani domestic, that says alot. He has had his chances and now time for someone else to get theirs. Farhat has been in the media spot as of late, why? Well he is performing in domestic, so what does that tell you? Taufeeq needs to go back there and pencil in some performances before pressing for a inclusion.

[Waqar's inswinging yorker]

u dont lose class and believe me he had it in abundance at the top of the order, he just lacks confidence at the crease, seems unsure in himself more so than anything else, when his confidence does return i hope we see the old taufeeq umar