*Official* Australia vs Pakistan in England

[Black_Warrior]

Question for the Pakistan fans: would you bring back either or both of Yousuf or Younis despite their (alleged) disruptive influences or stick with the younger blokes who won this test for you?

Younis Khan - Yes..Drop Shoaib Mallik. Azhar Ali is good..

Mohammad Yousuf - No..not just for his on field actions (where he allegedly tried to get players to swear an oath to not co operate with Younis as captain)..but also because he can't perform against good seam attacks in overcast conditions like the ones we got here in this seris. I doubt had he been in the side, he would have done much better than Azhar Ali or Uman Amin.

My team for the English series would be

Salman Butt
Imran Farhat
Yassir Hameed
Younis Khan
Azhar Ali
Umar Amin
Kamran Akmal
Mohammad Aamer
Umar Gul
Mohammad Asif
Danish Kaneria

 

[Black_Warrior]

Hail the bully in a spirit of cricket series.
"How dare you not believe Michael Hussey when he claims it is a clean catch? You have to take my player's words at all times"

 

[Spark]

IMG]http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c204/BW007/119753.jpg[/IMG]

Hail the bully in a spirit of cricket series.
"How dare you not believe Michael Hussey when he claims it is a clean catch? You have to take my player's words at all times"

Lay off him on this one, there's a potentially matchwinning moment there and with 5 runs to go you almost certainly won't get another.

 

[Kylez]

Younis Khan - Yes..Drop Shoaib Mallik. Azhar Ali is good..

Mohammad Yousuf - No..not just for his on field actions (where he allegedly tried to get players to swear an oath to not co operate with Younis as captain)..but also because he can't perform against good seam attacks in overcast conditions like the ones we got here in this seris. I doubt had he been in the side, he would have done much better than Azhar Ali or Uman Amin.

Debatable. I'm pretty sure last time Mohammad Yousuf toured England he absolutely carved up with the bat and England and scored 3 or 4 hundreds, all this was in his record breaking year in 2006 IIRC.

 

[Faisal1985]

Question for the Pakistan fans: would you bring back either or both of Yousuf or Younis despite their (alleged) disruptive influences or stick with the younger blokes who won this test for you?

I would bring back Younis not Yousuf. Younis was not a disruptive bloke as far as i know when he was simply a player. Malik and some other players just didn't want to play under him...Yousuf no question is good player but i think his attitude is way over the top where he wants to show the PCB his mantle but at the same time hurts Pak team all together. Younis on the other hand is simply fighting with PCB because he says why should he compromise when he has done nothing wrong.

So i think Younis should come back and Yousuf shouldn't IMO.

Also about the test match. I still think this was far from a comprehensive win for Pakistan which should have been after dismissing Australia for 88. I understand that this is Australia and they the never say die spirit all the time but without the likes of McGrath, Shane Warne, Gilchrist, Hayden etc. this could have been a better then 3 wicket victory. A number of world class teams wouldn't let Australia back in the game like Pak did...

However, Tears of Joy ladies and Gents...tears of joy from a Pakistani fan......

 

[Black_Warrior]

Lay off him on this one, there's a potentially matchwinning moment there and with 5 runs to go you almost certainly won't get another.

Yeah fine but if umpires are doubtful, you have to refer. You cannot take players words. Even if I accept that Michael Hussey is a completely honest player who never lies..who will guarantee that every cricketer in the world will adhere to that standard? They will never lie in a moment like that? If you cannot trust every player, you cannot trust one. It might be unfair on honest players but thats the way it has to be.
Umpires had every right to refer it because they were doubtful and Ponting had no right to charge at them and question them.

 

[Spark]

The commentators gave these stats yesterday and I think that it's about this.

Curiosity got the better of me so I decided to confirm...

Average of 31 away, not even including this series. And that's brought down by the SA series where he was the cricketing equivalent of an axe murderer and the NZ series where he feasted on some less than brilliant batting.

 

[nightprowler10]

WHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Watched the score from work on the cell phone when my battery died with 10 runs to get. Ran to the group computer and hogged it till the end. Damn near gave my coworker a bear hug when they won.

Question for the Pakistan fans: would you bring back either or both of Yousuf or Younis despite their (alleged) disruptive influences or stick with the younger blokes who won this test for you?

I'd keep them out simply due to their whining. Can be a real bring down for such a young team. Would rather move forward without either one of them and Shoaib Malik as well.

 

[Black_Warrior]

Debatable. I'm pretty sure last time Mohammad Yousuf toured England he absolutely carved up with the bat and England and scored 3 or 4 hundreds, all this was in his record breaking year in 2006 IIRC.

Yeah he performed well in that lone series abroad but have you forgotten his failures in New Zealand? South Africa? Australia?
Any attack that has good bowlers capable of producing great spells of fast bowling..he has failed more often than not. That England series was the lone one he shined. Add to that his off field actions.. a big no

 

[nightprowler10]

To all the people suggesting we should bring Younis back, do you really think he'll happily play under Butt's captaincy without bitching?

Debatable. I'm pretty sure last time Mohammad Yousuf toured England he absolutely carved up with the bat and England and scored 3 or 4 hundreds, all this was in his record breaking year in 2006 IIRC.

Mostly flat pitches though. I don't think we ever saw a pitch like this in that series. Not to say he didn't play some awesome innings, but they weren't exactly seaming decks.

 

[Faisal1985]

WTH is Ijaz Butt doing in there? Glory hunter

I don't know what he is trying to prove in that pic with that fist....he is still an ugly bastard who ruined Pak cricket and is one of the biggest reasons why Pak is not playing at home today......some crazy Pak fans back home want his head ...literally...

 

[Black_Warrior]

Also about the test match. I still think this was far from a comprehensive win for Pakistan which should have been after dismissing Australia for 88. I understand that this is Australia and they the never say die spirit all the time but without the likes of McGrath, Shane Warne, Gilchrist, Hayden etc. this could have been a better then 3 wicket victory. A number of world class teams wouldn't let Australia back in the game like Pak did...

Buddy, looks like you still have very high standards from the Pakistan team. This team has two world class players and one of them is barely 1 year old in international cricket.
Yes any other team would have won this match comfortably. This is not any other team. This is our very own Pakistan.. we gift victories to teams remember... finally we gifted one to ourselves..

 

[Faisal1985]

I'd keep them out simply due to their whining. Can be a real bring down for such a young team. Would rather move forward without either one of them and Shoaib Malik as well.

Not a bad option......at all....but would rather take Younis over Malik....Malik is a bigger loser...

 

[Faisal1985]

Buddy, looks like you still have very high standards from the Pakistan team. This team has two world class players and one of them is barely 1 year old in international cricket.
Yes any other team would have won this match comfortably. This is not any other team. This is our very own Pakistan.. we gift victories to teams remember... finally we gifted one to ourselves..

...those are not "very high standards..." ...only asking for sane cricket...oh well..just saying there is alot to learn from this win...

 

[Black_Warrior]

To all the people suggesting we should bring Younis back, do you really think he'll happily play under Butt's captaincy without bitching?

Younis is far above those petty stuff.. He has no greed for captaincy. He was happy to play under Mallik or Yousuf. He has refused captaincy many times starting in 2006. He refused captaincy when offered right after the World Cup 2007 after Inzamam retired.

I have tremendous respect for him as a cricketer for those reasons. Yeah he is not exactly a run machine against top fast bowling attacks but his attitude and dedication cannot be doubted.

 

[Black_Warrior]

...those are not "very high standards..." ...only asking for sane cricket...oh well..just saying there is alot to learn from this win...

Oh yes definitely. Butt's captaincy on the field being the most important one.
Dreadful fields he set up and almost cost us the game today.
Also his reliance on Kaneria and Gul when Smith was taking them to the cleaners
His nervous batting in the second innings

Secondly, I do not want to see CricketWeb favourite Umar Akmal in the test team for another year. He clearly has not matured enough. At this point, he is another Ashraful..To prevent him from being the failure known as Ashraful, he should stay away from test cricket for a year..do a bit of soul searching, play first class cricket and then earn his place back after a year

 

[nightprowler10]

Yeah don't get me wrong, I'd love to see Younis playing in the Test team again, god knows we need him, but he's such an attention whore...

 

[Jono]

Pakistan did everything they could to lose the match after day 1. Everything. And they still beat Australia.

Odd.

 

[Spark]

Too early for that IMO - if he doesn't perform during the England series then maybe there's a case for that. However I agree that just because someone is talented doesn't mean they get a free ride. Dropping a player like that can be the best thing for them. Just look at Clarke, started out in similarly brilliant fashion but suffered from similar issues, got dropped, worked hard on his game and within a year he was a completely different and vastly improved player - he doesn't have to be out for very long if he really works at it. I can't remember off-hand any other standout cases but I'm sure there are some.

Pakistan did everything they could to lose the match after day 1. Everything. And they still beat Australia.

Odd.

Would point out that Day 1 was possibly our worst day of test cricket in donkey's years. And that for periods of the match afterwards we weren't exactly stretching ourselves to win, either.

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Through all this we should note that Pakistan didn't drop anything - or at least I think they didn't.

 

[Umar_Akmal]