Pakistan in Zimbabwe (2011)

Congratulations to Pakistan on a clean sweep they played as a team. Well Done now next target is SL hopefully another clean sweep and yes Sam is right Amal Malik is a very good player he was out of action for a long time he will take time to settle. Razzaq is a key player for Pakistan but they dont know how to use him he is a must in any Odi side. News is that Afridi might come out of retirement soon i just want to ask why do a Pakistani player always need to do this kind of drama daily? one day retire next day they are back a really bad joke. 

Edited by mystery - 20 September 2011 at 9:43pm

This has forever been the case with Pakistan - from Majid Khan Asif Iqbal to Imran Khan Miandad and now Yousuf and Afridi!! I am not sure it is a team culture or what but this certainly isn't viewed as dramatic in Pakistan. It appears Afridi's problems were with Waqar, now that Waqar is gone, he might as well be back

Afridi is a must for ODIs. His bowling is invaluable and his batting occasionally clicks. He's an even better bowler than Ajmal in ODIs. But Lawson was spot on with his comments, saying that Afridi can't handle criticism - by retiring all the time he is saying that he is bigger than the team. But he is not bigger than the team, he is one individual in a squad and he needs to play for the team. Absolutely selfish cricketer and all this stems from the Holy-like status Asians place on their cricketers which negates any form of humility on the part of the cricketer. By idolising these cricketers, they are just inflating the cricketer's egos.


A good example is Shane Warne. It was very clear that he did not like Stephen Waugh at all - Waugh got the captaincy ahead of him, Waugh dropped him in 99 , Warne was a good friend of Ian Chappell who is one of the biggest critics of Waugh, Waugh clearly preferred MacGill, Warne's list of top 50 cricketers had Waugh at something ridiculous like no.30... etc. Yet, they played together in the same winning team for many, many series. That's when the player knows he is not bigger than the game... they are representing their nation, not themselves. This isn't golf or tennis....

Wasim is probably one of the greatest left armers of all time, ESPN rates him as number 1. The fact that he was that mistreated by the PCB is reason enough for him to stay out. I think he has had enough on his plate in recent times after the passing of his wife and his kids are still quite young also, so I doubt he'd want to be travelling all over the world. India is proximate and that's why he does help out in the IPL - good income, close to home and not for a very long time period. That's fair enough.

Pakistan need a foreign coach who doesn't get involved in the politics and doesn't have all the baggage of someone like Javed or Waqar. They keep saying that there's a language barrier, but the only language that is needed is cricket. Beckham played in Madrid and he doesn't speak a drop of Spanish. It's not important. Pakistan needs a coach, not a mentor, and the message will get across. A lot of the Pakis are adept at English and there'd be enough guys out there translating if need be.

True Sledge!! And language is certainly no barrier. Pakistan's finest hour came under Bob Woolmer and Inzi was the captain and we all know about Inzi's English. 

Originally posted by mystery . Well Done now next target is SL hopefully another clean sweep

Now this is over optimism Mystery

Yes Amal as Sam said there is always hope and Sam get well soon mate.