Dubai 29 August : Former Pakistan head coach Mickey Arthur believes that the team should split the two openers of captain Babar Azam and wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan.He also suggested that Fakhar Zaman should start the bat, as a left-handed batsman in the middle of the order will make bowlers change their angles when bowling towards him.When Azam and Zaman were sunk in the power-play of their Asia Cup Group A match against India, Rizwan tried to increase the pace by launching an unintentional ball straight to the third man, off Hardik Pandya.with Pakistan ultimately achieving 150 in 19.5 overs.
They don’t have any experience in middle-order and the middle-order, the majority of scoring responsibility falls on the trio who haven’t been at their best batting first.
As can be seen in Pakistan losing three games while batting first post in the T20 World Cup 2021.
“I believe that they must (separate Babar and Rizwan).Fakhar is able to hit the ball in different places, which can frustrate bowlers a bit.It’s the different angles that you’ve got a left-hand as well as a right-hand.Therefore, it’s spread Babar and Rizwan and then you put Fakhar Zaman back on the top of the pitch,” Arthur said Arthur in ESPNcricinfo’s T20 Time Out show after the game ended.
Arthur believes that Pakistan will struggle for years to come when they continue with the same batting model.”In terms of the blueprint the time I was with Pakistan and we experienced a better time in T20 cricket We used to aim for 160 batting first , and then depend on our bowlers to squeeze.We built as best we could and that was an ideal recipe for us.”
“The difference between the team then and the current team is that in the middle we were able to have Mohammad Hafeez and Shoaib Malik.In the middle they are a young team and don’t have much experience, and if you put them three wickets down I think they’re likely to struggle.”
Arthur added that India brought Ravindra Jadeja in the fourth position interrupted Pakistan’s plans of taking the final overs of left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz, who had removed Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli in the middle of the overs.
“The most important thing to me was the left-hander in the middle, because that meant that they (Pakistan) were unable to get (Mohammad) Nawaz back.
They had to keep Nawaz to the back.It could have cost them.”
Arthur ended his speech by declaring that Azam could have utilized his spinners Nawaz as well as Shadab Khan more effectively in the game.”They should have taken the pace off towards the end of the powerplay.In part because they only had 12 runs of velocity with the team they selected They could have certainly gone through at least one round of Nawaz or one or two of Shadab (Khan the legspinner) as I’ve observed that having studied and played against Rohit, he doesn’t play legspin very effectively in the powerplay.Also, his strike rate to legspin is much lower.
“So you might have bowled Shadab or you might have bowled Nawaz.Nawaz typically bowls in the powerplay for his team in the PSL in any case.
This could have been a good match-up for Virat and Rohit.This could delay the overs of the real quicks some time further in the match.”
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