Pakistan actually take many wickets, Bangladesh continue to bat like they are allergic to it
Notes on Shaheen, Fakhar, Babar. Also, is Mohammed Shami the GOAT World Cup pacer?
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Well, Pakistan have won a game. Such is this tournament, that the last one they won was several months ago if I remember correctly. Bangladesh again did not bring their top four batters with them, allowing Shaheen to play his greatest hits. But they finally promoted Mahmudullah. In fact, he was batting within the sixth over. The only problem was he was batting at number five. Him, Litton Das and Shakib all chipped in to ensure that the total was poor, but not horrible. Haris Rauf actually took wickets in the middle and Mohammad Wasim cleaned it all up. In the chase Fakhar Zaman hit seven sixes, Babar was poor again, and Ifti mania got the chase down easy.
Let’s check the tape.
Pakistan in world tournaments since 2016 (JK)
In 2016, Pakistan were terrible in the T20 World Cup. They beat Bangladesh, were embarrassing against India, New Zealand smashed them and were woeful on the field against Australia. Weirdly enough, that was their last poor ICC tournament.
2017 started that bad, but ended up as champions. In 2019, they started that bad again but made a good run at the semi-finals. So at least they gave the fans something. In 2021, they should have made the final, but one partnership did them in. And they made the final in 2022 and put some pressure on England, Shaheen’s knee happened, but so did Stokes.
So this was lining up as their worst event since 2016. Their spin bowling and Naseem Shah's injury aside, that was pretty poor. But what about them now? Well, they are fifth, but because they are a game up on everyone. They won against the Netherlands, which was terrible and they could have lost that match. Sri Lanka was a great chase, though they did cough up some runs there. Then three straight losses in which they were not good. In their loss against South Africa, a functioning spinner would have that for them, and then they beat the worst team in the tournament today. So they look fifth, but they’ve had to shed all their spinners and rotate their openers on a minute-by-minute basis, and their batting has been really disappointing.
Even if they split their last two games against England and New Zealand, they have been poor. The South Africa win would have masked that a little if it happened. But this has been a poor World Cup. But the good news for them is England and Bangladesh have been way worse.
Fakhar Zaman is an enigma (JK)
The merry-go-round of Pakistan's opening batting is making me dizzy. Starting with Imam and Fakhar, moving to Shaffique and Imam, and finishing on Fakhar and Shaffique. Looking forward to Babar having a go later in the tournament.
You may remember - or probably not, it was like seven months ago now - when I said Pakistan probably made an error in dropping Fakhar Zaman. Not that Abdullah Shaffique wasn’t good, it was more about the idea of playing him for one match and then dropping him. But I also talked about form.
So there are three main reasons to drop someone, their confidence has gone, their technique is exploited, and they are not good enough. They dropped Fakhar for the first. He was back today with the exact same technique as far as I could tell.
World Cups are tough because even though there are a lot of games, it is still hard to make those big decisions.
And Fakhar’s form was a mess. Earlier in the year he was making a hundred every innings, and then when they stopped, so did any runs he was making at all. But the question now is if they had kept him, would have he returned to form on his own, or did he need the dropping? Usually, players of his ability don’t need to be dropped. He overperformed in a bunch of matches in a row, then underperformed after. That’s a really common pattern.
But what we saw today was why he can transform the Pakistan top order. They have a lot of Clydesdale scorers, he is a stallion.
Babar in a spin (JK)
Babar Azam has been dismissed five times in this tournament to spin.
If you are thinking, well did he have a problem with it before, the answer is no. Hell, no. Now it is fair to say that Pakistan pitches over recent times have probably not helped spinners take wickets. But the man is averaging 70 against it. And suddenly he looks confused by what spin is. A lot of people talking about his form overall, but this would appear to be his biggest issue.
They showed some footage of him in the nets, and he was practising a lot of sweeps. But it looked like real low-energy training. Something about him is definitely off.
Shaheen Shah Afridi - The near-complete ODI bowler? (SAK)
Shaheen Shah Afridi became the fastest pace bowler to take 100 wickets in the format today. Look at some of the other names on this list. We’ve talked extensively about Starc, Boult and Shami as some of the best strike bowlers of the modern era. While you could argue Shaheen hasn’t played top teams as much as the other guys, you also have to factor in that he bowls on flat pitches at home.
Shaheen also has the best strike rate of all time for pacers with at least 100 wickets. That is a commendable feat even though bowlers take more wickets now than they did in previous eras.
Not too bad in World Cups either, right? Only Shami is comfortably ahead, and we just did a video on him. He is still young and we might not even have seen the best of his game yet. He is joint top-wicket taker of this tournament. He has also done well in T20 World Cups, so he certainly has the quality to do it against the best teams on the big stage.
Shaheen’s most effective phase is as a new ball bowler. That was on show today - 5 overs, 10 runs and 2 early blows. He takes a lot of death wickets too, but at times he tends to go for a bit. He is still an above-par new ball and death bowler, but he wasn’t as effective in the middle when compared with the best bowlers in the world.
But in this World Cup, things have been a bit different. He has just 4 wickets with the new ball, but barring Jansen and Madushanka (and now Shami), a lot of quality pacers have failed to pick up early wickets. But look at his middle overs numbers, he has been terrific with the older ball, around the 30-40 overs mark.
The experienced Bangladesh batters (SAK)
Mahmudullah is among the runs, again. Promotion up the order, this was the highest he has batted in this tournament. He now has 274 runs from just the 5 innings, but have Bangladesh really been able to get the best out of his game?
Litton and Shakib contribute. Shakib started slow, then hit a few boundaries off Ifti before holing out to a short one. Does he have a short ball problem?
The commentators mentioned it on air, and I recollected him being dismissed off it a few times too. So I looked up the numbers for this World Cup.
There is a significant drop here from the rest of the cycle. It may just be that the reflexes are slowing down because of age, but it hasn’t been a persistent problem before this WC.
Mushfiqur Rahim came in the Powerplay and was dismissed by Rauf. Not ideal.
Bangladesh’s struggles against pace bowling (SAK)
I am not exaggerating when I say this, Bangladesh have by far been the worst team against pace bowling in this tournament. They have looked absolutely clueless against fast bowling after the first game. And it isn’t like they are just full of new players, they have a bunch of experienced batters. Extremely disappointing from them.
They averaged 11 against pace and 55 against spin today. And they couldn’t score off the quicks either. The Pakistan pace trio proved to be too hot to handle for them in all phases of the innings. But they milked the spin duo of Ifti and Nawaz very comfortably without any real problem. Scored at 5.45 runs per over against spin and 3.42 against pace.
Bangladesh bowling (JK)
Najmal Shanto bowled for Bangladesh today. Other than him being awesome, I would assume that at least in part he’s probably seen as a bit of a partnership breaker. Not at the international level with his one wicket. But he has picked up a few in domestic cricket. It becomes a lot more silly when Miraz comes on and gets an LBW not long after.
But the point is, Bangladesh is not taking wickets at this World Cup, only Sri Lanka has been worse. And they have also gone for runs. This is a World Cup you need to take wickets to slow teams down, only Afghanistan have worked as a defensive bowling team.
The weird thing is they were the best bowling unit between the World Cups at taking wickets. And so I thought, well, ok, maybe this is just a home thing, right? That sometimes happens.
But they are the second best at taking wickets between World Cups in neutral and away venues. And you look at their series, it’s pretty varied. Sri Lanka, New Zealand, England and the Asia Cup were all really good. Only Zimbabwe, West Indies and South Africa did they struggle. And even then, they were better than the World Cup. So this has just fallen apart.
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