Pakistan’s Problems In Cricket World Cup 2023: Haris Rauf’s Poor Game Awareness, Lack Of Good Spinners

It can solely occur with a Pakistan group. In the identical match, its bowlers can bowl an eye-popping 152 dot balls and but find yourself conceding a large 367 runs in 50 overs. It occurred towards Australia in a World Cup match on Friday when there was no ‘unhealthy’ factor in Pakistan’s bowling. There was solely ‘good’ and ‘ugly’ aspects — the 2 extremes that has gone on to outline Pakistan cricket since time immemorial. There aren’t any half measures for Pakistan. At one finish, they pegged Australia for what was value half the entire variety of overs and on the different finish, they have been hammered for 29 fours and 19 sixes.

And, this was after their bowling division’s chief Shaheen Shah Afridi produced the perfect particular person bowling figures of this version — 5 for 54.

It is now nicely documented that Naseem Shah’s absence is hurting the group badly however even then, Haris Rauf’s lack of recreation consciousness and never having spinners of worldwide high quality have affected the group’s efficiency.

Rauf, for instance, hasn’t acquired a dangle of Indian tracks the place he’s both bowling too full or too quick — the latter generally — which has damage the group like no finish.

Rauf has been hit for 11 sixes in 4 video games and that’s greater than two sixes per recreation, which is not an incredible piece of statistic for a tearaway fast who is meant to intimidate the batters.

He went for twenty-four in his first over towards Australia and three/83 in 8 overs aren’t numbers that he wish to keep in mind.

Legendary Wasim Akram, who’s an skilled on Pakistani present ‘Pavilion’, made a telling remark about Rauf.

“Rauf till he doesn’t play domestic cricket, he will have problems in ODIs. In T20, you can survive as it is only four overs and you expect batters to attack. But you learn ODI bowling when you play domestic (red ball) cricket. I want to see Rauf bowl six balls back of length (three quarter) on stumps,” Akram mentioned on the present.

There have been issues aplenty for the Pakistani bowlers, almost about planning.

With the aspect boundaries being 62 or 63m, the perfect size is fuller and totally on block-hole which is predicted from a quick bowler, who has a whippy slinging motion.

The straight boundary at Chinnaswamy Stadium is 72m and yorker size deliveries would not be straightforward to hit straight.

But Rauf stored on pegging it on shorter aspect and gave sufficient width to Mitchell Marsh and David Warner to play horizontal bat shot on each side of the wicket.

Talking about recreation consciousness, former skipper Misbah ul Haq additionally had an statement about Hasan Ali which was equally scathing.

Despite understanding that Marsh’s favorite space is the arc between sq. leg and mid-wicket as he performs the pick-up shot (pull or flick) fairly nicely, Hasan acquired his sq. leg fielder nicely contained in the 30-yard circle and stored a 3rd man for the streaky edges.

As far as leg-spinner Usama Mir is worried, he was seen bowling with 5 males on the on-side, but he by no means bothered to bowl a googly to proper hander Marsh.

On a observe the place the ball is not turning a lot, the perfect shot is straight hits and in contrast to the Pakistanis, who tried to chop or pull (Iftikhar and Rizwan) Adam Zampa’s deliveries pitched on stumps, the Australians went for the jugular and succeeded.

Bowling size balls with mid-on and mid-off fielder being stored up and third man posted on the boundary made no sense if one checks the wagon wheel of the 2 Australian centurions.

Aaqib Javed, simply earlier than the beginning of the World Cup, had spoken about how Rauf would wish an excellent spinner on the different finish through the center overs in an effort to make a distinction.

In all equity, good leg-spinners want good captains and in Babar Azam, neither Shadab nor Usama have discovered a tactician, who would set wicket-taking in-out subject for them when they’re scurrying for canopy.

Pakistan’s failure as a bowling unit lies as a lot with the bowlers as with Babar’s lack of tactical nous.

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