Pakistan in Zimbabwe (2011)

Hahah!! This sucks!! But nonetheless I think I had some beef being critical of Pakistan - mostly for the fact that they bowled first on a flat deck. It was almost like I didn't feel they deserved to come away with a win after such a blunder.

Originally posted by zuhair_abbasi I am back fellas!!  Have hardly been on the forum for a week or more but have not missed nay cricket. I totally disagree with whoever thinks Aizaz Cheema is a useless bowler. He is a real workhorse and bending the back sort of a bowler. A breed that Pakistan has usually lacked. He bowled with discipline throughout and reaped the rewards d despite the placid track that it was. This guy is 32 that does not mean he can't play test match cricket  - he has earned his place after a tremendous FC season. Respect the guy folks. Not a Sohail Khan fan though - he does not seem ready for the big stage yet. Junaid Khan is a future prospect and I am not too concerned about his performance, he will surely get better and he looks to me a bowler who will do good when conditions favour him. It is not that bad an idea to try the bench strength on a low key tour. And I see absolutely no shame in conceding 400 runs or managing to take just 4 Zim wickets ont eh first day. You have to respect the opposition. Pakistan'pace attack was totally inexperienced and the Zimbabweans are coming from a  recent win against BD.  I expect Zim to only get better from here - They will soon be above BD and will give tough time to the WIndies as well. Why drop Adana Akmal? the guys is pretty tidy behind the stumps - just because he is somebody's brother does not mean he can't keep wickets. He is pretty handy with the bat too and I would want to see him as a permanent member of the test side. On the match itself - another 70 runs and Zim are in with a huge chance I say. I have seen Pakistan crumble on day 5 a lot recently.  Zimbabwe or not - chasing is not what Pakistan does best. It might turn out to be a very interesting final day. Anything over 150 and I would rule out a Pakistan win.

Welcome Back!!! still SW is missing hope to see him soon too
I still think there are better bowlers than Cheema in Pakistan but if he is doing well than thats great for Pakistan's cricket. Junaid was impressive he was unlucky in the first innings. Hmm correct about Adnan he has not done anything wrong but becuz of Akmal in his name i hate him little bit.

Cheema bowled with good pace too and that was good to see... Zuhair is right, no other country could have survived the kind of loss PAK suffered because of the spot fixing episode, but PAK have moved on and mashallah have so many young fast bowlers coming through that even if Aamer and Asif were to be made available now they would struggle to cement their places in the team.

Edited by sam_ahmed - 06 September 2011 at 6:33pm

Sami and Rana were absolute trash Sam. Especially Sami. Can't believe he played 30 plus test matches for Pakistan.

Asif and Amir were excellent against England last year and showed that good fast bowling can undo this batting line up that England possessed. Neither of those players are available and none of the Pakistani options have the same powers as those two excellent, but troubled, pace bowlers possess.

One key player for Pakistan could be Ajmal. English don't traditionally play spin bowling that well and he could be a key player. Kaneria needs to come back in the side, especially ahead of Rehman - but politics and what not suggests otherwise would occur.

Pakistan need to make sure that they pick their best batting line up and I reckon that means bringing in Shoaib Malik. Pakistan are definitely short 1 or 2 consistent batsmen, that's for sure.

Just how hot can we expect it to be in January zuhair , I'd have thought it would be just lovely and warm !

Spin, Spin, Spin guys. I think that's the key for Pakistan. IF they can win the spin wars then they could have a shot at taking the series.

What a good fight by Zimbabwe but Pakistan scrape through to a 4 run win... then again a fairly inexperienced Pakistan team has held it's nerve pretty well. 

ha..ha... I do Zuhair but believe me Pakistan will be a major threat once again to all the top nations very very soon, I'm eagerly waiting for the SLN series in October! ZIM can only improve from here and these are great signs for cricketing world. Hopefully BAN too can pick themselves up, their series against WI next month is another one I'm looking forward to!

It was a bad thing for Pakistan that Farhat did well dont know why they dropped Shafiq and played a player like Farhat. Shafiq can easily open and is a better fielder too.

65/0 chasing 271 - looks like Zim are going to take a consolation win

Sibanda has been in excellent form. If he can learn how to stop playing the pull shot he could be a fine batsman for Zimbabwe for many a year.

Zimbabwe weren't completely outplayed in this series and can take heart from some very decent performances, particularly with the bat. The fast bowling however looked ordinary against a decent Pakistani batting line up. Mpofu is a little bland, while Jarvis and Vitori are still young and probably don't know their games well enough.

The pace attack has potential and they have a very decent batting line up. Nothing like the 99 World Cup line up of the Flower brothers, Johnson, Goodwin, Campbell and Whittall, but still not bad. They need one more decent pace bowler in the ranks you'd think, while the spin stocks look good with Price and Lamb being the most impressive. Utseya isn't going to be suitable for test cricket I feel, lacks variety and his off break doesn't turn or dip enough to be frank.

Zimbabwe certainly look more organised than BD. Just like Australia, they have had a management and leadership facelift and I think it is bringing out the best in them after a period of decline. England is also an excellent example of what great leadership and management can do to a side.

World cricket isn't in such a bad state, all teams are competitive and I wouldn't rule out the world no.5 side, Australia, beating world no. 2 India for instance. I think the teams are all quite well matched.

True! Australia are playing South Africa as well... so we can say the world no. 2 and 3.

Congratulations to Zim for putting up a great show in some of the matches and congratulations to Pakistan for a whitewash in every format of the game. overall after so much problems in 2010 I am satisfied with the performance of my side in 2011. Surprisingly they are playing as a unit now. It was a good tour to judge some of the players. we can say that Cheema is a find of this tour, Hafeez is in top of his form Mashallah, Asad shafiq looks a decent opener. Some of the players performed pretty crap through out the series like both Sohails proved out to be big failures and Malik what a crap player he is. I think we need Afridi or Razzak very badly at the end because we don't have any powerful hitters at the end and it can cot us very badly against big teams