Pakistan tour of New Zealand | 16th March - April 5th, 2025 | 5 T20Is, 3 ODIs

[Autonomous]

5 minutes ago, tapandrun said:

Tahir does not look intnl level, niazi played some decent knocks in SA, but looking his domestic records , not sure why is he is even been picked .

DO not think he has game for #7 and he is there as pure batter 

Both are terrible. I dont know what our selectors are smoking these days

[Ultimate_Game]

1 hour ago, Autonomous said:

Tayyab tahir and Irfan niazi are rubbish hacks

 

Yup. The only ones worth keeping is Salman Agha. He's the find of tour for Pak and is the best batter. He should be the captain across formats and the team should be built around him, not hacks.

 

So far these're the batters I see:

 

Salman Agha - Player around which you build the team

Babar Azam - Like it or not he's better than the others

Rizwan - Jury is out. Don't think he's the difference maker but if there's nobody better then you've to keep him. And no, Azam Khan or that hack Harris are not the answers. Rizwan is comfortably better than both.

Saim Ayub - Should be backed as he had started finding his feet in intl cricket

Fakhar - Not dependable but unfortunately nobody better is there. The problem is he's getting into wrong side of 30s and can fall off the cliff. Most probably doesn't make it to 2027 WC

 

I saw a couple of T20s and was shocked at the quality of batters. Hasan Nawaz and Haris looked like gully cricketers and I was reminded of the time when we used to play Cricket in school/college and a few folks used to simply swing their bat hoping to hit the ball. The closest I can come to a comparison is Paul Valthaty who had one great IPL season and was not to be seen before or after that. The Pak batters in T20 had no technique and all I saw were ugly hoicks. I'm sorry but they can't make it at intl level. Maybe Pak needs to go to the drawing board and find more players like Salman Agha instead of trying to focus on high SR players who're nothing but hacks.

 

Also, time to let go of Shadab Khan and other so called all-rounders. They can neither score runs nor take wkts. At the very least they need to be dependable in one area. The reason India is doing well is coz they have Pandya, Axar and Jadeja and all of them are genuine all-rounders. They pull their weight in both the areas and at the very least they'll come through in one area. Pandya and Axar's runs were the key in CT and in WT20. Jadeja gets a lot of ridicule, and rightly so as he's not a natural white-ball batter. But he doesn't give anything away while bowling and is a gun fielder. Plus he has 3 triple 100s in Ranji so he does know how to bat. It's just that he's not a power hitter but he's still a million times better than Pak all-rounders.

 

I won't go into bowling as you like it or not, you don't have too many options behind Shaheen, Rauf and Naseem Shah. They're not the best and maybe they can be rotated. But wasn't impressed by any Pak bowler.

[Autonomous]

11 minutes ago, Ultimate_Game said:

 

Yup. The only ones worth keeping is Salman Agha. He's the find of tour for Pak and is the best batter. He should be the captain across formats and the team should be built around him, not hacks.

 

So far these're the batters I see:

 

Salman Agha - Player around which you build the team

Babar Azam - Like it or not he's better than the others

Rizwan - Jury is out. Don't think he's the difference maker but if there's nobody better then you've to keep him. And no, Azam Khan or that hack Harris are not the answers. Rizwan is comfortably better than both.

Saim Ayub - Should be backed as he had started finding his feet in intl cricket

Fakhar - Not dependable but unfortunately nobody better is there. The problem is he's getting into wrong side of 30s and can fall off the cliff. Most probably doesn't make it to 2027 WC

 

I saw a couple of T20s and was shocked at the quality of batters. Hasan Nawaz and Haris looked like gully cricketers and I was reminded of the time when we used to play Cricket in school/college and a few folks used to simply swing their bat hoping to hit the ball. The closest I can come to a comparison is Paul Valthaty who had one great IPL season and was not to be seen before or after that. The Pak batters in T20 had no technique and all I saw were ugly hoicks. I'm sorry but they can't make it at intl level. Maybe Pak needs to go to the drawing board and find more players like Salman Agha instead of trying to focus on high SR players who're nothing but hacks.

 

Also, time to let go of Shadab Khan and other so called all-rounders. They can neither score runs nor take wkts. At the very least they need to be dependable in one area. The reason India is doing well is coz they have Pandya, Axar and Jadeja and all of them are genuine all-rounders. They pull their weight in both the areas and at the very least they'll come through in one area. Pandya and Axar's runs were the key in CT and in WT20. Jadeja gets a lot of ridicule, and rightly so as he's not a natural white-ball batter. But he doesn't give anything away while bowling and is a gun fielder. Plus he has 3 triple 100s in Ranji so he does know how to bat. It's just that he's not a power hitter but he's still a million times better than Pak all-rounders.

 

I won't go into bowling as you like it or not, you don't have too many options behind Shaheen, Rauf and Naseem Shah. They're not the best and maybe they can be rotated. But wasn't impressed by any Pak bowler.

I want to see Mohammad Nawaz at #6 or #7. He is much better than these hacks like Niazi, decent with ball and good fielder. Pretty much like a Jadeja lite version.

 

 

Agreed, bowling is rubbish. Shaheen is bloody brainless. 

 

I would play the following:

 

Abdullah/FZ

Saim

Babar

Salman

Saud

Rizwan

Nawaz

Akif/Shaheen

Haris

Naseem

Muqeem/Abrar

 

 

One thing most people miss out is Saim Ayub's bowling. He was superb with ball in hand during SA series we won

 

 

 

 

Edited March 30, 2025 by Autonomous

[Ultimate_Game]

3 minutes ago, Autonomous said:

I want to see Mohammad Nawaz at #6 or #7. He is much better than these hacks like Niazi, decent with ball and good fielder. Pretty much like a Jadeja lite version.

 

 

Agreed, bowling is rubbish. Shaheen is bloody brainless. 

 

I would play the following:

 

Abdullah/FZ

Saim

Babar

Salman

Saud

Rizwan

Nawaz

Akif/Shaheen

Haris

Naseem

Muqeem/Abrar

 

 

One thing most people miss out is Saim Ayub's bowling. He was superb with ball in hand during SA series we won

 

 

 

 

 

This seems to be a decent team. But you'll need one more bowling option. I only see 5 bowling options and one of them is Nawaz. If anyone has a bad day - Nawaz or Rauf might - then you're stuck.

 

Also, need to find a high SR batter in place of Saud and/or Rizwan as they can't bat at a high SR. But if there's nobody else other than hacks then you live with them as slow runs are still better than no runs. This will take time as you don't find high quality players easily. It took us 15+ years before we finally started seeing players come though IPL. This pipeline is the key and most crucial part. Unless it's established you can only hope for short term fixes.

[Autonomous]

5 minutes ago, Ultimate_Game said:

 

This seems to be a decent team. But you'll need one more bowling option. I only see 5 bowling options and one of them is Nawaz. If anyone has a bad day - Nawaz or Rauf might - then you're stuck.

 

Also, need to find a high SR batter in place of Saud and/or Rizwan as they can't bat at a high SR. But if there's nobody else other than hacks then you live with them as slow runs are still better than no runs. This will take time as you don't find high quality players easily. It took us 15+ years before we finally started seeing players come though IPL. This pipeline is the key and most crucial part. Unless it's established you can only hope for short term fixes.

Saim can bowl 10 full overs as well in an ODI. He actually has fifer in domestic as well. 

[Ultimate_Game]

2 minutes ago, Autonomous said:

Saim can bowl 10 full overs as well in an ODI. He actually has fifer in domestic as well. 

 

Let's see what he does against likes of India, Aus or NZ. You may get away against most but these three teams are the ones who won't stop attacking and will come hard at you. Most likely he gives you 4-5 overs against better teams as I don't think they will let a part-timer get away with 10 overs. You'll need one bowling all-rounder who is a much more reliable bowler. So the bowling all-rounder bowls his 10, or at least 7 and Saim can fill in 3.

[Autonomous]

6 minutes ago, Ultimate_Game said:

 

Let's see what he does against likes of India, Aus or NZ. You may get away against most but these three teams are the ones who won't stop attacking and will come hard at you. Most likely he gives you 4-5 overs against better teams as I don't think they will let a part-timer get away with 10 overs. You'll need one bowling all-rounder who is a much more reliable bowler. So the bowling all-rounder bowls his 10, or at least 7 and Saim can fill in 3.

Only issue with my XI seems to be Saud. 

 

Maybe he isn't fittimg for #5 in ODIs but then that is where spinners come in and he has great game versus spin.

[Ultimate_Game]

3 hours ago, Autonomous said:

Only issue with my XI seems to be Saud. 

 

Maybe he isn't fittimg for #5 in ODIs but then that is where spinners come in and he has great game versus spin.

 

Possibly. But unless you find someone better you have to make do with him. He's better than Iftikhar and other hacks though.

[CoverDrive]

Match was lost in selection itself. The fifth and sixth bowler just got destroyed and was the difference. The 22 wides made it a comfortable win. This was the reason they were knocked out in champions trophy and no learning to play genuine spinners. 
 

How do you leave out abrar and they even have a left arm chinaman who would have been a challenge for these inexperienced batters. 
 

Babar has been better than many in recent times but he has a ceiling. Salman is the man in form but he is no allrounder 

 

[putrevus]

I don't understand if they just had four bowlers then they should have long batting lineup.They were in decent position but how can lower order crumble like that.

[Autonomous]

1 hour ago, putrevus said:

I don't understand if they just had four bowlers then they should have long batting lineup.They were in decent position but how can lower order crumble like that.

True.

 

And we have some stupid Pakistani fans blaming Babar for loss who batted very decent. 

 

We needed 80ish in 11 overs. And other batters should have been able to get that - instead they got bundled within 30 runs.

[singhvivek141]

15 hours ago, Autonomous said:

Saim can bowl 10 full overs as well in an ODI. He actually has fifer in domestic as well. 

Don't turn him into an allrounder, if you're pinning your hopes as your next gen batter.

The more he will bowl, greater are chances of injury, as too much cricket is happening these days.

 

Only use him as an allrounder, if you are ready to relieve him from one format and you his backups available.

[putrevus]

1 hour ago, Autonomous said:

True.

 

And we have some stupid Pakistani fans blaming Babar for loss who batted very decent. 

 

We needed 80ish in 11 overs. And other batters should have been able to get that - instead they got bundled within 30 runs.

They are idiots if they blame Babar.He was not extraordinary but he was decent.

[cricketfan28]

cmmon .. need hitting

[cricketfan28]

2 overs 4 ...WTH

[cricketfan28]

lo archer on fire .. too good for tri

[Nikhil_cric]

.

Edited March 30, 2025 by Nikhil_cric

[Autonomous]

2 hours ago, singhvivek141 said:

Don't turn him into an allrounder, if you're pinning your hopes as your next gen batter.

The more he will bowl, greater are chances of injury, as too much cricket is happening these days.

 

Only use him as an allrounder, if you are ready to relieve him from one format and you his backups available.

His bowling can be as good as how Hafeez used to bowl I feel. 

[tapandrun]

21 hours ago, CoverDrive said:

Match was lost in selection itself. The fifth and sixth bowler just got destroyed and was the difference. The 22 wides made it a comfortable win. This was the reason they were knocked out in champions trophy and no learning to play genuine spinners. 
 

How do you leave out abrar and they even have a left arm chinaman who would have been a challenge for these inexperienced batters. 
 

Babar has been better than many in recent times but he has a ceiling. Salman is the man in form but he is no allrounder 

 

Most sc captains likes to bat deep in sena, if they donot have allrounders some1 has to take the responsibility, 5 pure bowlers is asking too much from batting in sena.

The worng move was pak team banked on a part-time off-spinner with short sq. boundary and some1 who has never bowled before.

 

Chasing ~350 is like playing a lost game to start with, do not think Pak was In the game there is method to chase such total which is get ahead of the game upfront, reduce the required runs to 200 as soon as possible. Agha's quick 30-40 gave some hope but how long can he do that kind of hitting.

 

Do not think sc batters can chase down ~100 in last 60 balls in sena, not many are good at hitting 6/4 vs both short ball and full balls, this ground had odd dimensions ~80 m st. boundaries.

 

Edited March 31, 2025 by tapandrun

[singhvivek141]

18 hours ago, Autonomous said:

His bowling can be as good as how Hafeez used to bowl I feel. 

It can be, but the pressure of bowling takes out a lot. Specially if you feel the batter is your best batsman going forward.
If Saim can be your one or two format player like Abhishek. Then he can bowl some overs. But if he is going to be your all format player like Jaiswal, maintaining that in modern times is hard. As there are 3 formats plus various leagues around the world. 

Just use him as 2-3 over bowler, that should suffice. Any more usage will have it's impact on the body. May not be seen immediately but in few yearly surely.

Edited March 31, 2025 by singhvivek141