Thank You, Salman Butt, For Being Completely Useless
Sorry for no liveblog today, but I didn't want to wake up at 7:30 when I knew that we'd lose. Anyway, consider this an open thread on today's game against Sri Lanka. The Indians in the crowd can talk about their game with the Windies too, if they want. Random thoughts from me:
1. Salman Butt needs to be dropped. Yesterday. Why is he in the team? Can he field? No. Can he bowl? No. Can he bat? Fuck, no. So why is he in the team? By the way, there's an anti-Salman Butt Facebook group, for those interested.
2. Malinga is an excellent bowler.
3. Younis has been far and away our best player in this tournament.
4. Shoaib Malik needs to open with Akmal, and we need to draft in another batsmen in place of Butt to play in the middle order.
5. Fawad Alam should not have to wait for Afridi to sky his first ball to bat.
Discuss.
1. Salman Butt needs to be dropped. Yesterday. Why is he in the team? Can he field? No. Can he bowl? No. Can he bat? Fuck, no. So why is he in the team? By the way, there's an anti-Salman Butt Facebook group, for those interested.
2. Malinga is an excellent bowler.
3. Younis has been far and away our best player in this tournament.
4. Shoaib Malik needs to open with Akmal, and we need to draft in another batsmen in place of Butt to play in the middle order.
5. Fawad Alam should not have to wait for Afridi to sky his first ball to bat.
Discuss.
Labels:
Cricket
16 comments:
No one, not even Saeed Ajmal should have to wait for Afridi to sky one.
Now we need to beat New Zealand and Ireland. Then it's down to run-rate unless SriLanka manage to beat New Zealand.
Razzaq will most likely come in tommorow..but at who's expense? I'm guessing Butt (as a batsman?) or Tanvir( *allrounder* )..Though too much is expected of him.
Prediction for next match: Razzaq will bat at one-down and, ala '99 World Cup, take 10 overs to play himself in.
haha that facebook group is awesome
Does anyone remember the time when Razzaq played poorly and then blamed it on the special Palak diet he was on? The irony was that he was prescribed that Palak diet by a Malang baba ji and our International Star followed that despite PCB hiring expensive staff that actually came up with individual diet plan for our players ..
I so adored the anti-Salman Butt group, my only grouse is that the photo they have on display does not display the extent of his awfulness.
I cringe everytime the commentators call Afridi dangerous. Afridi is like Pak Nukes...imminently dangerous..but they never seem to *fire*
Gayle out....am keeping my fingers crossed. Looks like we have messed up against the Windies too.
Bravo's played really well. Nice to see India can actually be beaten in T20 -- they started looking like the Ozzies in Test cricket circa 99-05.
Pakistan lost because of chootia-can't-bowl-straight aka sohail tanvir.
Sniko:
No, absolutely not. If your bowlers restrict the opposition to 150, then they've done their job. The top three are to blame for this -- they've given us nothing in this tournament.
Ahsan,
Your point about the top 3 is valid. After restricting SL to 150, they needed to reciprocate the spinners.
But no team can afford to bleed extras and have scores like 65/0 at the 5 over mark.
The margin was 19 runs and that can be attributed to several factors/players a) Salman Butt's misery b)Afridi's cluelessness with the bat c) fielding d) extras e) Kamran Akmal's run out f) Sohail Tanvir's generosity ... we are a comedy of errors aren't we?
Copied & pasted from cricinfo:
(Scroll to the last point)
Prime Numbers
11
Number of deliveries in Sohail Tanvir's first over
32
Number of dot balls bowled by Shahid Afridi, the second best in the tournament. Dale Steyn with 33 dot-balls leads the list
6
Number of dot balls Younis Khan played in his 37-ball 50. He took 20 singles, seven twos and hit four fours
29
Number of fours hit by Tillakaratne Dilshan in the tournament, almost twice that of the next in the list, Jacques Kallis, who has 15
20
Number of extras conceded by Pakistan in the Sri Lankan innings, the second-highest in the tournament after Sri Lanka's 22 against West Indies
here's the cricinfo link from where the prime numbers came from.
Thank you for sharing the Facebook group. It made my day.
If ever a performance could be called "inspired", it was that of windies against india yest; all departments of the game including strategy(sending bravo ahead of others, pacing the innings etc)
Which brings me to the point of similarities of the two games yesterday. Both India and SL batting first posted modest totals of 150 and both Pak and Windies were chasing RR of 9 for most part of the innings. Both pak and windies adopted, for a large part, similar tactics of boundary at the head of the over followed by singles. The only point where the difference came was SL's regular stream of wickets in the middle overs (aided by reckless Pak batting) and on the other hand rather toothless bowling by Indians. I think SL pre-empted the 9 per over strategy well and realised they had to go for the kill, while Indians failed to do so; though it worked in SLs favour that Pak had lost early wickets while Windies had not. All in all everythings set up well for the remainder of the super8s
And I really thought we had the chance of undoing the Lankans yesterday. Naive me!
Two things we need to do if we have to beat the Kiwis;
1) Some one needs to kill Salman Butt.
2) We need someone at the top order to cast clear the circle in the first six overs and cast some *fear* in the opposition rank. Maybe Razzaq at the top.
PS: your ball-by-ball coverage in really interesting, a fact reassured when I had to listen
*to radio yesterday*
(missed that out in the last sentence)
I was at the match and it was sad the way they threw it away. Only consolation was watching the Indian fans start to leave early after cheering against Pakistan (the stadium was majority injuns). They were pathetic - drunk, vulgar, obnoxious and frankly a disgrace. They even picked a fight with the Aussies in the ground for no reason (I saw one guy throw his beer at some Aussie women when it was clear India had lost).
So while it may have been sad to watch Pakistan screw up it did help the day when india choked so badly....and I laughed and laughed....
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