The version of Pakistan that showed up at Edgbaston to play India was the worst version that could have showed up
Jarrod Kimber at Edgbaston04-Jun-20176:37
Fleming: Pakistan’s lack of intent is a concern
Pakistan turned up on time, and all their players remembered to wear green. That’s all the positives covered.Imad Wasim was bowling the second over of the match for Pakistan. He is a quality Powerplay bowler in T20, and goes for just over four an over in that period in ODIs. But his job in those situations is to stop batting sides from smashing the ball. India don’t smash the ball in the first Powerplay; neither Indian opener scores at over a run a ball in this period.Now Imad might have been used to take a wicket, but his defensive line and the absence of catching fielders didn’t make that look like it was entirely his plan. But maybe he was brought on early to bowl at two players who destroy spin bowling in ODIs as a way of coaxing them into their own demise, so with that plan he needed to build some pressure through the field. The first ball was tight on off stump, and Dhawan gave himself some room and timed it well to point.To point, not some random fielder, not the guy you hide, but point, the best of your out-fielders, the most athletic, who reads the ball the best, and is the quickest to stop any and all runs that come in his way. Even club sides can find one person who’s not got a midriff bulge, who can move, bend and throw to field at point. But no, not Pakistan, they have Ahmed Shehzad. He doesn’t patrol point; he just happens to be standing there. So when the ball comes his way he falls over it, and before Imad has had a chance to build pressure, he’s gone for two runs.But Imad’s next ball is a wide down the leg side. So in two balls the bowler who has been brought on to create scoreboard pressure has had two errors cost him three runs. Later in the over, two fielders converged on another ball, the Indian batsmen did not run, but while trying to save the run both Pakistan fielders fell over in perfectly awkward harmony.There was also an overthrow where Sarfraz Ahmed was lazy and the back up at point was not watching. There was also a half save that a better fielder would have entirely saved, and there was the normal Pakistan fielding where they run around balls in the deep instead of trying to cut them off.Even with the many errors, Imad managed to be fairly economical, and his five overs went for 27. Since the last World Cup, India have scored at 4.8 an over in the first Powerplay. Their plan is to knock the ball around, cash in on poor bowling or average spinners, and approach the death with wickets in hand and batsmen who are set. Their plan is to be around 48 for 0 after 10 overs; in this match they were 46 for 0. So it seemed Pakistan’s plan was to let India do roughly what India wanted to do.Because Pakistan do not bat well, their best chance was to take wickets, and their leading wicket-taker since the last World Cup is Hasan Ali, who takes a wicket every 26 balls. To celebrate that fact, he came on in the ninth over.Even with Mohammad Amir bowling well, Sarfraz took out the second slip, and an edge went past the solitary wide slip. There was another edge, a top-edged hook that would have been caught at fine leg if they had a fine leg, making you wonder why Amir was trying the bouncer in the first place. You could argue there were worse crimes than Sarfraz’s captaincy, and most of the time he looked as annoyed and confused as everyone else.It also isn’t Sarfraz’s fault that someone thought it was a good idea to include Wahab Riaz in this side. Wahab is known as an attacking wicket-taker, but he has barely taken a wicket since spooking – not dismissing – Shane Watson at the 2015 World Cup. He’s taking a wicket every 48 balls, in the first ten overs he’s averaging 138, and in the middle overs it’s 76. So the few wickets he has taken is when he’s getting smashed in the death. Why on earth was he out there?How is it possible for a professional athlete to get cramp in his ninth over when his team has been on and off the field on a damp Birmingham day?•Getty ImagesIn a perfect world, Mohammad Irfan would have been the other fast bowler, making life infrequently uncomfortable, but he’s unavailable because he failed to report a corrupt approach. So Wahab’s poor form was seen as better than Junaid Khan’s lack of recent ODI form, even though Junaid took 4 for 73 in a warm-up against Bangladesh. Wahab took 0 for 68 in that match. Against India, he bowled three spells – four overs for 34 runs, three overs for 28 runs, and 1.5 overs for 25 runs – before mother cricket decided to end his pain by giving him a twisted ankle. With any luck, Pakistan won’t be able to pick him again.Even their best bowler Amir, who looked sharp, frugal, dangerous and like he was playing for a team that didn’t deserve him, stuffed up. How is it possible for a professional athlete to get cramp in his ninth over when his team has been on and off the field on a damp Birmingham day?Even when Pakistan had success it was only because India made mistakes. Their first two wickets were from a full toss and a running error, but Pakistan out-mistake-d India at every turn. They dropped Yuvraj Singh and Virat Kohli, but let’s not forget the half volley free-hit, that was more of a free s***. The final over was delivered by Imad, who had been a sea of calm in an ocean of crap for most of the day. He now had to step up for two injured bowlers and did well to restrict the over to 23 runs.And then Pakistan batted.Dot balls, stupid swipes, and an aggressive disregard for singles was their plan. Sure, they could have picked Sharjeel Khan – the second quickest scorer in Powerplays who averages 44 with a strike rate of 130 since the last World Cup – but they can’t because he’s in trouble for corruption as well.And what were they left with? Azhar Ali almost running himself out when he bumped into Jasprit Bumrah, getting dropped, and then delivering a mediocre 50; Ahmed Shehzad making a contribution as point-less as his fielding or his collection of selfies; and Babar Azam barely turning up. All this while India fielded terribly.But how badly would India need to field for Pakistan to chase 289? They’d probably have to flap around on the ground like fish to give Pakistan a 40% chance of chasing the total.When Shoaib Malik hit a six and the ball was lost under the covers, we saw something special. For a few minutes we got to see two Pakistan batsmen standing in the middle, not mis-hitting a ball, ignoring singles or slogging wildly. They just stood there, and it was by far the highlight of the innings. But that moment of Pakistan competency had to end, and when they found a replacement ball, Malik mis-hit it, Mohammad Hafeez called no very late, and the man with 15 off 9 was run out by the man who was 24 off 33.So, let us review.Pakistan came into the game with a silly theory that even when it worked as planned, it didn’t work. They dropped simple catches, bowled tripe, mis-fielded simple balls, and tried poor strategies on the fly. Their big bad fast bowler was just bad, their in-form bowler hobbled off the park because he’s unfit, they dented the confidence of their frugal spinner, their selections didn’t make cricket sense, two key players were missing because of corruption, they couldn’t run between the wickets, their batting’s only consistency was slowness of running and scoring, when they played an attacking shot it was inevitably stupid and risky, the batting line-up lacked pretty much everything a semi-competent XI would have, and the highlight of their match was the bits where they got lucky wickets or the ball was lost.Playing Pakistan in this form is having a bye. Bye, Pakistan, bye.