ISLAMABAD - Former Pakistan cricket team captain and Asian Bradman Zaheer Abbas lauded Pakistan cricket team’s victory in the one-off T20 international and termed it a morale-boosting for the national team and the players.
Talking to The Nation, Zaheer said: “After drawing the Test series and getting overwhelmed from English team in the five-match ODI series, the green caps’ morale was rock-bottom. But it was truly a remarkable performance shown by the young guns especially Sharjeel Khan and Khalid Latif, who provided such a whirlwind start, which laid the foundation of historic victory for the green caps.”
Zaheer said the way Sharjeel just butchered English bowlers was a delight to watch. “English bowlers were clueless and were given a real bashing, which was missing for long period of time. The wicket was slightly fast and more suited to Pakistani style of play while in the past, Pakistani bowlers were deprived of playing on such bouncy tracks. Although it was just one T20 match, yet the way Pakistan was so dominating, it would give them psychological edge in the upcoming series against West Indies.”
Zaheer said he must congratulate new skipper Sarfraz Ahmed, who handled the situation quite well. When a captain achieve victory, everybody starts praising him, but when a captain fails to provide the desired results, all of a sudden, unnecessary criticism starts coming from all corners against him. England were off to flying start, had Sarfraz not used his bowling options sensibly, the things could have been quite different. It was truly world class performance shown by each and every member of the team and credit goes to all. After getting such a wonderful start, England was on the back foot mainly due to some outstanding bowling. Wahab bowled with venom, while Immad and debutant Hassan were simply world class, and restricted England to 136 runs.”
Zaheer said: “Although Sarfraz showed his class and proved him as one the of sensible captains, yet I would also give credit to Azhar Ali, as he didn’t performed too bad. When a person is appointed captain of the national team, he must be given proper time and backing. The captains are not appointed on day-to-day basis, but they need time to adjust with the players and after proper time, they start turning the fortunes of the team. In my personal opinion, Azhar did quite well actually as it was never easy to play against England in England and beat them. In my opinion, 4-1 is not a bad result keeping in mind, Pakistan had not win series in England since decades and no one has magic lamp to turn the fortunes overnight.
“After being outclassed in four ODIs and chasing down more than 300 runs was never easy. Azhar and company did a fantastic job and I personally think he should be given more time to steady Pakistan ship. Azhar is relatively new but he will give satisfactory results as skipper if he is given some time. It is never easy to lead a side and expect over the moon results. Pakistan’s ODI ranking in the ICC is a very clear indication and I don’t think replacing ODI captain can do wonders in the present situation, instead this can further aggravate the situation. The youngsters are doing well and they must be bucked up to get results on regular basis rather than discouraging them,” Zaheer concluded.