The national cricket team’s convincing win in the three-match T20 series against Zimbabwe is heartening, although it was a foregone conclusion given the huge difference in strength between the two sides.
Zimbabwe’s game has been in the doldrums for the last two decades due to political strife there and the departure of key players. It is 12th in the ICC T20 rankings while Pakistan occupies the fourth spot. But while the tourists did not offer much of a challenge to the Pakistan team, it was an opportunity for the latter to try young players and to practice in the run up to a challenging trip of New Zealand in December.
Some of the players including Khushdil Shah, Haider Ali, Usman Qadir, Abdullah Shafique, Haris Rauf and a few others had imposing performances in the T20 series which will help in their preparations. Usman clearly stood out in the series, and his tricky leg-spin bowling gave the Zimbabweans a pretty tough time. That said, however, Pakistan must not rest on their laurels due to a clean sweep against a lowly ranked team; they are likely to face far tougher sides in their forthcoming tour of New Zealand. Pakistan’s routs in Australia and England in the past year suggests they need to get their act together and work extremely hard.
While there’s no doubt that Pakistan are full of talent in both batting and bowling, they still need to groom their players given the fact that very few international matches are being played around the world these days.
Cricket experts hope that the new change of guard, with Babar Azam swapping Azhar Ali as Test skipper, will improve Pakistan’s fortunes. Babar, though still learning the craft of good captaincy in limited-over formats, is a topnotch batsman who is expected to lead from the front, an attribute lacking in Azhar whose wary approach led to Pakistan’s overseas losses.
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