The reasons for Pakistan's batting fragility by superserp.com

Player:

Kamran Akmal, Shahid Afridi, Umar Akmal, Imran Farhat, Taufeeq Umar, Yasir Hameed, Mohammad Hafeez, Misbah-ul-Haq

DateLine: 29th October 2013

It seems, from many angles, that batting is the main source of the Pakistan national cricket teams woes. But why is batting such a problem for Pakistan?

Theories are many and include all sorts of speculation about the lack of international exposure in the country thanks to the fact that they havent hosted an international team since a terrorist incident on the Sri Lankan team in 2009 to poor education affecting the young cricketers in the country.

Bad batting trips Pakistan up
The captain of the Pakistan national team, Misbah-ul-Haq has been open and honest in his views that batting is the exact problem that the team has.

Speaking to the media at Lahore airport he talked about the teams performance in the second test in Harare and how it was the bad batting that led to the teams defeat.

He said: Our batting was the culprit on a pitch which was good for batting. In both innings of the second test we couldn't cross 250. We only crossed 300 once in the four innings on this tour. How can you win a Test match without scoring 300 runs?

Very little improvement
It would be logical to assume that any player would improve after batting for a certain amount of time against different teams. However, some of the Pakistan team commit the same mistakes over and over.

The openers tried out over the past few years like Mohammad Hafeez, Yasir Hameed, Taufeeq Umar and Imran Farhat have been playing international cricket for Pakistan for around a decade but their technical problems with batting are still apparent. They have not found a way to 'stick it out', avoid a 'rush of blood' or not chase after balls outside off stump. They are easy prey for savvy oppositions. Umar Akmal scored a century in his first Test match but hasnt since then. Shahid Afridi appeared better when he played as a teenager many years ago and Kamran Akmal, despite being one of the top batsmen for a while, appeared to go backwards.

It can be hard to predict how and when Pakistan will start performing better but checking the odds at Freebets and keeping up to date with changing fortunes will help work out when would be a good time to lay bets on the team.

Education for young cricketers
Its an odd problem for the team but obviously very much a real one and some theories posit its down to the lack of education in the country on a very general level.

Lacking the analytical skills necessary to play strategically there is a chance that young cricketers just arent being taught the right way to bat at a world class level.

Whatever the reason, its clear that Pakistan need to sort out their form if they want to start really competing with other national teams.