Victory is good but not good enough

Pakistan outplayed Sri Lanka in the all the department of the game during the first one-day international to go one up in the five-match series. Pakistan achieved the victory target in the 22nd over of the game. Despite losing Hafeez hwen score was 12 on the board, Humayun Farhat and Younus Khan played brilliantly to take their team closer to victory. Younus scored unbeaten half century while Sarfraz Ahmad hit the winning run in the 22nd over. Earlier, Sri Lankan skipper Dilshan won the toss and decided to bat first. Dilshan decision backfired as Sri Lankan batting line-up crashed and the whole team were all out 132 runs in the 41st over. Shahid Afridi bowled superbly and chipped in with 3/27 and justified his selection in the team. Saeed Ajmal and Hafeez also bowled well and shared four wickets between them. Pakistan team bowled well, fielded well and played like a one-unit. Wicketkeeper Sarfraz displayed neat and clean keeping skills behind the wicket after a long time and proved himself a lot better wicketkeeper than Akmal brothers. The winning of Pakistan in such a convincing way is indeed something to celebrate but with its not good enough keeping in view the future. Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Zaka Ashraf has did good job by selecting team on merit but it needs more efforts to prepare Pakistan team for the 2015 World Cup as many ageing players playing in this squad will not be able to play actively due to old-age. PCB must prepare a pool of 40 youngsters performing well in the domestic cricket like Awais Zia, Jamal Anwar (wicketkeeper) and Umer Amin, the captain of U-25 team that won the SAARC U-25 Twenty20 Cricket concluded recently in Nepal. Sharjeel Khan (left-handed batsman from Hyderabad), Rameez Raja junior, orthodox spinner Raza Hassan, Usman Malik (off-spinner from Lahore) and many others who are performing well be included in the pool for backup of seniors players. Misbahul Haq, Younus, Ajmal and Rehman will be 40 plus till the next World Cup and they would not be able to perform in the mega event. So its time to focus on future than present victories and replace the old players with youngsters gradually to avoid a sheer downfall in the performance of the team in near future.