Cricket blunders turned blessings
CRICKET blunders turned blessings is requested to be read with full focus, care and attention please for its startling findings, revelations and intricacies to comprehend.
Coming to the point straight away: Let us start with our bowling blunders.It is blessing in disguise for our spinner Nauman when batters themselves get out for very quick/urgent runs, he bowls over after over endlessly “mostly” wicketless.
He may have line and length but “rarely” crucial nip and bounce for the wicket.Ma Sha Allah Sajid Ali and Shadab Khan are blessed models of nagging line and length blended with teasing nip and bounce to baffle and bowl out any batsman home and abroad.
Pacers blunders tend to prove very expensive many a time in terms of erratic line and length and wayward nip and bounce irrespective of Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Iftikhar Ahmad and all so bewitched and bamboozled.
However, with their super speed and stamina blending with teasing line and length, combining with horrendous nip and bounce send many a wicket cart-wheeling and leave many a celebrity bewildering.
Had it not been for our fielding blunders rather loopholes mediocre bowling would not thrive.
Imagine fielders diving after the ball had already passed or the ball passing helplessly and ridiculously between the waivering legs.
An extra run each throw at the keeper’s or bowler’s end is imminent when the ball is picked but not released all in one action as the ball is fielded but the arm swings to release it at the wicket gives enough time for an extra run adding enormously to the total and adversely affecting result of match.
Cricket blunders turned blessings offer an array of opportunities for batters.All is blunderous with inappropriate selection of batters for T20s or 50 over or Test matches.
Suitable batting strategy counts for each fomat of the game indeed.An ideal T 20 strategy is a careful and watchful flying start in the first six overs of the power play focusing on all like ones, twos, threes, fours and sixers keeping the score briskly moving even if a wicket or two falls.
Once the power play is well-played and runs amassed as strategized, it is time to avoid dot balls, stay alert and alive and for scoreboard moving with ones and twos and a big hit here and there as-when chances arise.
Barring occasional let offs and disappointments; On and off the field looks formidable and has delivered well Pakistan squad of Babar Azam (captain), Shadab Khan (vice-captain), Asif Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Imad Wasim, Mohammad Hafeez, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shoaib Malik including reserves: Khushdil Shah, Shahnawaz Dahani and Usman Qadir and others.
Barring sporting egoistic and distorted feeling of complacency, over confidence, self deceit¡ false prestige and self righteousness, there remains hope for emotional maturity, seriousness of purpose and positive thinking in our cricketing mindsets and heart beats towards a better and brighter tomorrow with trend setters expected to lead from the front for the team to emulate
—The writer is an educationist, based in Karachi.
