When Asian Cricket Council announced the schedule of Asia Cup, what was the first thing we tried to find out in all the fixtures? Did we want to know about the venues of the scheduled games? Did we desire to see how the matches will be played in the different format this time? Well actually, we had our first glimpse straight to the fixture of India and Pakistan game on 19 September.
Few days before the match, there were the talks about how Fakhar Zaman would lighten up the stadium of Dubai with his flamboyant strikes or how Muhammad Amir would deliver the best of fireballs to get his groove back in the international cricket.
But the story came out completely different on the day of the game. The execution of Pakistan team looked unplanned and clueless. They did not just seem to be the same squad we saw in recent times. It was just another miserable outing that we saw most of the times against India in the modern era.
The squad right now needs to look upon their strengths and weaknesses in a better way to evaluate results in their favour. The defeat against India in the group stage could be a blessing in disguise for Pakistan because they got a good eye-opener before all the big Super 4 stage.
They realized the need of stabilizer in middle overs
There can be an instance of the top-order failure in any game and at that time, your team needs a stabilizer who keeps ticking in middle orders to get the momentum going.
When Pakistan was in trouble against India after the failure of their top-order, they needed a role of saviour from Asif Ali in the moments of crisis but he couldn’t settle his feet to play that stint and ended up giving his wicket in an aggressive manner.
Pakistan required a batsman like Haris Sohail who could’ve helped them in passing through tough circumstances and rotated the strike to assist Pakistan to a respectable total.
After the terrible batting performance against India in between of the innings, Pakistan realized how important is the role of stabilizer in the team when the top-order fails to make their mark earlier in the innings.
They missed the presence of regular spin-bowler
Pakistan decided to go out with the four fast-bowlers on the slow wicket of Dubai that provides tremendous support for the spin bowlers. In comparison, India appeared to be more aware of the conditions following their selection of three spinners in the line-up. The plan of India turned out to be quite successful after their spin-bowlers had the magnificent bowling figures of 23-0-94-4 in the match against Pakistan.
Shadab Khan dismissed Rohit Sharma on very the first ball of his spell with the beautiful googly and demonstrated the worth of spinners on the pitches of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Muhammad Nawaz can fill in the remaining slot of spin bowler because he could be handy with his wicket-to-wicket line & length. He also has an experience of playing in UAE due to Pakistan Super League.
They found out about the lack of experience in their side
The lack of experience in the side has certainly hurt Pakistan in their important encounter against India.
All the Pakistani batsmen took risks without settling their feet on the crease properly. Some of the deliveries that were not good enough to get bowler the breakthrough resulted in wickets after the batsmen played rash shots by showing zero awareness of the situation.
Pakistani batsmen have to get the priorities right wisely and need to rectify their problems. Moreover, they need to cooperate with the bowlers by providing them a good platform to defend so this team could truly show their potential in one of the most prestigious tournaments of the sport.
