 Pakistan will play England in the first of the two T20Is at Dubai from
next Friday. And despite been the world T20 champions, it will be very difficult
to call them favourites for the games.
The issue with the Pakistan team came to the fore during their recent
tour to Australia when they lost nine games in a row to the hosts. This included
three Tests, five ODIs and one T20I which meant that it also gave room for a
lot of slander and slanging.
Click
Here to Watch Pakistan vs England Live Back home, the captain of the side, Mohammad Yousuf has said that there was one cricketer who was spoiling the unity of the side, pointedly talking
about Shoaib Malik. Malik, on his part, has been appointed the captain of the
Pakistani side for the two T20Is, and has retorted back by saying that in the
games that Yousuf was the captain, there was no unity on the field as compared
to when he was not around.
With this kind of an atmosphere, the least the side could have expected was
for someone like Shahid Afridi to not be a part of the side. Afridi has
been banned for two T20Is by the ICC for his ball-easting incident and that
means that not only will the side miss the experience of Afridi's captaincy
but also his bowling, if not the batting.
This will mean that a lot of the dependency will be on the likes of Malik himself
and Umar Akmal, who has had a quiet series in Australia.
The English side will be quietly relishing the whole Pakistani affair. However,
they will also realise that Pakistan is not a side to be taken lightly when
they have their backs to the wall. In fact, Pakistan perform really well when
they look down and out and this is what they are seeming at this current moment.
The side will be led by Paul Collingwood, whereas the rest of them include
some new guys. Jonathon Trott has had a good couple of games at the top, and
despite his lack of runs towards the end of the series against South Africa,
he will be one of the players to watch out for. However, the biggest threat
the Pakistanis may face is from Kevin Pietersen, who struggled to get going
in South Africa series after the first game.
Geoffrey Boycott has said that the problem with Kevin Pietersen is that
he refuses to adapt himself to the situation or to the conditions, and that
is the one thing that the flamboyant batsman will have to change. If the English
line-up gets going, they are definitely a better batting side than Pakistan.
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