Should we bat first or chase in the finals if we win the toss?

[Lannister]

Let Pak chase. Pakistani batsmen are very meek and one can only imagine the train wreck when playing against India. 

Edited June 15, 2017 by Lannister

[Haarkarjeetgaye]

What will Pakistan want to do? Bat first or chase. 

[sandeep]

14 minutes ago, Cricketics said:

So if team shyts in its pants scoring 240 then we must op to bat first and not worry about them chasing.

 

We must bat if pitch looks good to bat.

 

Not batting first is negative approach. We have hardy lost wickets in this tournaments so players are battinf with confidence.

 

This is the confidence Ganguly did not show by opting to bowl. We could have put on 300 in final in 03 and might have defended that.

 

What is the only scenario that Pakistan has to win in this game?  Pull another perfect script like England - Attack freely with their bowlers, take a lot of wickets and restrict the opponent to a sub-250 score and then hope to chase it down.   That's pretty much it.  Even the best bowlers will be de-fanged significantly if they are defending 220 on the board.   By batting first, we are giving them the freedom to attack with their bowling, increasing their almost non-existent chances of winning from none to slim.  Why do that, only in service to some myth about batting first.  

 

Forget the past.   Its irrelevant in 2017 what Ganguly should have done or could have defended in 2003.  Analyze the current situation, playing conditions, without any pre-conceived notions/assumptions.  And most importantly opponents' strengths and weakness.    Nullify the former, magnify the latter - best way to do that is to make them bat first.  

[sandeep]

14 minutes ago, Haarkarjeetgaye said:

Wrong I agree, but he had a reason,  that 125 all out and also till the finals his bowlers were doing well. Bad decision but he had his reasons

In retrospect, after all these years, I will admit this - that Australian team was simply better than us.  Sure we could have had a slightly better chance if we had batted first on that track and gotten a proper big score.  But there's no guarantee of us either getting to a good score, or defending it.  That bowling attack may well have used the early bit of movement to decimate our top order.   

[Cricketics]

1 minute ago, sandeep said:

What is the only scenario that Pakistan has to win in this game?  Pull another perfect script like England - Attack freely with their bowlers, take a lot of wickets and restrict the opponent to a sub-250 score and then hope to chase it down.   That's pretty much it.  Even the best bowlers will be de-fanged significantly if they are defending 220 on the board.   By batting first, we are giving them the freedom to attack with their bowling, increasing their almost non-existent chances of winning from none to slim.  Why do that, only in service to some myth about batting first.  

 

There is nothing wrong with what you wrote there. I agree with all of that but thing is our other bats can fail too while chasing. Rohit or Dhawan are bound to fail and so could Kohli. And middle order even though not weak, could find hard to chase down total in the big game. Pakistan is bowling well currently and chasing could be really hard against such bowling incase we lose some early wickets. Hence I wrote what I wrote, put big total and try to defend.

 

Either way we are capable of winning both ways and capable of losing both ways. 

[Pollack]

Chase.

[someone]

Its a tournament of collapse. Many teams batting first have collapsed from a great position to a mere ~200-250 score. Even today's game Bangladesh had a mini-collapse. So chasing is the way to go.

[PBN]

chase chase chase is the motto of this tournament. pak haven't batted first once in the tourny

 

bat first and you are required to make 300+

[cric_fan]

Does not matter. Either way, Ind is winning.

[nevada]

I think chasing is best. Pak's bowling is a decent unit but batting is so-so. Let them bat first and crumble under the pressure.

[sandeep]

29 minutes ago, cric_fan said:

Does not matter. Either way, Ind is winning.

For someone who was quite boisterous with the "banter", you sure are super-pessimistic about your team's chances.  

[speedheat]

We should just drop ashwin and play shami/umesh then done, phainty is in for sure chasing or not chasing doesn't matter lol.

[Ultimate_Game]

Just now, speedheat said:

We should just drop ashwin and play shami/umesh then done, phainty is in for sure chasing or not chasing doesn't matter lol.

Preferably Shami coz he shuld do better against that hack Fakhar  

[Laaloo]

It doesnt matter really

[speedheat]

Preferably Shami coz he shuld do better against that hack Fakhar  

 

I would have also preferred shami but he is short of match practice and can't risk him directly in to the finals, I think umesh will be better as last time he played against Pakistan he managed to pic up 3 wickets which includes their best batsman Babar azam.

[Ultimate_Game]

2 minutes ago, Praggy said:

It doesnt matter really

Make sure the match thread is opened by someone with a 100% record  

[Ultimate_Game]

Just now, speedheat said:

 

I would have also preferred shami but he is short of match practice and can't risk him directly in to the finals, I think umesh will be better as last time he played against Pakistan he managed to pic up 3 wickets which includes their best batsman Babar azam.

Last time they didn't have hacks like Fakhar or Faheem. They had Shehzad opening who is shyte. If Fakhar goes after umesh, which he will do based on what we've seen so far, it will be a huge risk. Shami has the nous to come back if a batsman goes after him, Umesh doesn't. Shami bowled pretty well in warm up games and also bowled in IPL so it's not that big a risk.

[Rasgulla]

5 minutes ago, speedheat said:

 

I would have also preferred shami but he is short of match practice and can't risk him directly in to the finals, I think umesh will be better as last time he played against Pakistan he managed to pic up 3 wickets which includes their best batsman Babar azam.

 he bowled better than umesh in first match...  

[Rasgulla]

6 minutes ago, Ultimate_Game said:

Make sure the match thread is opened by someone with a 100% record  

That's me 

[speedheat]

Last time they didn't have hacks like Fakhar or Faheem. They had Shehzad opening who is shyte. If Fakhar goes after umesh, which he will do based on what we've seen so far, it will be a huge risk. Shami has the nous to come back if a batsman goes after him, Umesh doesn't. Shami bowled pretty well in warm up games and also bowled in IPL so it's not that big a risk.

 

Yes agreed shami bowled well in warm ups but fast bowling is all about rhythm, I will give new ball to bhuvi and bumrah hopefully one of them will get that hack, and will keep umesh for middle overs against Hafiz,Babar,malik especially Hafiz who bottles it when it comes with pace.