ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Cricket team’s downslide continues, as the green caps were hammered by Proteas in the first Twenty20 International by a humiliating margin of nine wickets.
The defeat could have been even worst had Hasim Amla not tried to invent a stroke, which led to his departure. Toss was the nemesis of Pakistan team in the recent past and the blame of defeats was transferred on losing the toss rather than accepting their own mistakes. Hafeez had completely failed to carry the burden of a skipper. His own place in the team is quite questionable and just because of unwanted, uncalled for and out of the blue backing of some high profile personalities, including the interim committee head Najam Sethi, Hafeez has so far managed to occupy a permanent place in the playing XI as well as not only clinging to the T20 captaincy but also eying to captain ODI team as well. Sethi, like his predecessors, continues the path of personal liking and disliking. Rather than taking performances and ground realities into account and show the door to non-performers, Sethi has openly expressed that he wanted to see Hafeez as ODI captain for the next assignment in South Africa.
Hafeez has completely lost his confidence. He is so scared from the Dale Steyn's pace that he opted to send Pakistan's most promising and highly talented lad Shoaib Maqsood to open the innings, a decision, which was bound to doom. A silly and totally unacceptable decision costs Pakistan team dearly, as none of the batsmen could survive the Proteas bowling onslaught. Pakistani spinners and fast bowlers hardly managed to buy a wicket in the entire ODI series. But on the other hand, all the African bowlers took wickets at will.
Pakistan are arguably the best and most balanced sides of the world when it comes to the shorter version of the game. But the way batsmen played, it was very hard to believe that whether highly paid, professional cricketers were playing or school-going kids were representing the country.
How could it be possible for an interim head of the board to publicly urge the most consistent performer of the team to take rest as he wanted to appoint his blue-eyed Hafeez as new ODI skipper? Despite fully aware of the fact, Hafeez has under preformed just to grab the ODI captaincy as well, instead of throwing him and others out, ajam Sethi wanted Hafeez to captain the team, which means there is no room and place of merit in the team and these words only exists in books.
Without the Mr ever-consistent Misbah, national team failed to even cross 100 runs, which speaks volumes about the inability of the squad, which shows Misbah is very much need of the team. He is the backbone of Pakistan batting. Whether someone likes him or dislikes him, he is the one and only reliable player at the moment. It also shows, it is not Misbah who has flopped as skipper but it is the players lobby, which is the main and only reason behind Pakistan teams consistent poor results. In the past too, skippers were changed just bowing down to players’ power. If the same old trend continues again, it would be a very major and big blunder. Time is ripe that players must be shown, they are nothing without the PCB and masses support. If they want to continue to enjoy same respect and public backing, then they have to perform otherwise there is no room for them in the team. All is not lost yet. This squad has the depth and ability to bounce back. The only thing which is required from Hafeez is to adopt aggressive approach rather than going with a defensive frame of mind, as this the one and only way of competing against the top professional teams and get desired results. If Hafeez continue his negative minded policies in the second and last T20, result would not be different from the first one.