He is one of the most useless cricketers in the World. As long as his lack of utility was confined to the Pakistan cricket team, it was fine. But now it has spinned over into World Cricket by his extremely dumb selection for the Super Series. It is a matter of great humor that a person who is unable to command a regular place in the Pakistan side is an automatic choice in the World X1. Clearly, Gavaskar and his mates were looking only at his box-office status and the balance of the team could not have been further from their minds.
As it turns out he bowled quite ordinarily in the 2 games he played and was luckily dropped from the playing X1 for the Test match. Not only is Shoaib Akhtar an ultra-egoistic megalomaniac who has no interests besides being in the limelight and harming team spirit with his attitude; but he has also failed miserably with the ball over the last 3 years. Since NZ 2003, I can't remember a single time Shoaib has bowled a decisive spell that has led his team to a win. He was really really deadly between 1999 and 2002 and now he nothing more than average. Of course, his injury record is stuff of legend. Again when was the last time he lasted an entire test series ?? And bear in mind, he is 30 - not getting any younger. He is in serious danger of leaving a legacy of being a big flop.
And now his antics have so annoyed John Wright, the World X1 coach that he has been given one nice Wright slap. Good on you, John. That's the way such guys need to be treated.
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3 comments:
Most of your criticism is understandable if not always being justified. Shoaib does have an attitude problem, and that is no secret. I do think however, that there are far more "useless" cricketers out there apart from Akhtar, Saurav Ganguly for once has done very little to avoid that tag.
Post Scriptum: Shoaib was (for your knowledge) our most successful seam bowler in our tour down under last year (with 2 five-fors in the 1st 2 tests, the first of which could have restricted Australia to a sub-200 score BUT for lack of back-up support). The fact that he played half fit in the next test and underperformed is another story entirely. But he did bowl well in the first two, you can ask Darren Lehman, and he will tell you how Shoaib was almost single handedly responsible for finishing his test career, Hayden also became his "bunny". Fact remains that Shoaib has a decent record against Australia, and that must have been tempting for the selectors, his fitness record is not good, and that is something against him, but it was a gamble the selectors were prepaired to take.
PPS: If Shoaib's performance was under par in the one-day "super" games, so were those of
1)Pollock
2)Kallis
3)Flintoff
4)Ntini
I don't think any of the seamers bowled particularly well, in fact I would say that Shoaib actually bowled better than either of these, and given the few catches that were dropped of his bowling were taken, his figures might have actually looked decent.
hi
yes in that tour down under i did feel that finally shoaib might turn a new leaf there. But no. He didnt complete that series either. In Melbourne he bowled well first inns flopped second time. Talk abt lack of support but basically wasnt it the same attack minus shoaib plus mohd sami that beat india in india ? anyway i know aus is an altogether different proposition but shoaib really hasnt delivered against anyone. tell me any match in the last 2 years (after nz 2003) that pak has won in which shoaib has played a major role.
hitting batsmen on their heads breaking speed records does not get one wickets. it is line and length and accuracy that does. shoaib has failed miserably here. i remember sehwag treating him almost like a club bowler on the 2004 tour.
btw i agree that all seamers were undr par in the odis. that might again have been due to lack of match practice. also pollock is also on the downward spiral acc to me. to be honest i wud have preferred to see honest, consistent bowlers like chaminda vaas and rana naved ul hasan in the odis.
I'm not a fan of Shoaib, never will be perhaps, but I still singularly refuse to not be persuaded that he is "useless".
Quote GK: "Talk abt lack of support but basically wasnt it the same attack minus shoaib plus mohd sami that beat india in india? "
The team that went to India didn't beat India, they drew with India.
Quote GK: "tell me any match in the last 2 years (after nz 2003) that pak has won in which shoaib has played a major role."
Test # 1695, India vs. Pakistan, 2003/04, 2nd Test, Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore:
1st innings: 16-1-69-1 *wicket=Agarkar (not very significant)
2nd innings: 17-4-62-3
*wickets=Sehwag, Chopra and Pathan (all very significant given they were in-form with the bat at the time)
Pakistan won this by 9 wickets. And from the evidence I see in the stats above , and that I saw back in 2004, I don’t think this can be called anything but a “major role” (in bring Pakistan victory i.e.).
http://pak.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/2003-04/IND_IN_PAK/SCORECARDS/IND_PAK_T2_05-09APR2004.html
If you take out the condition of "in matches Pakistan have won", though, you get a much better idea of how well/badly Shoaib has bowled since the time frame you specified, i.e. post January 2003/04:
In the final test of the same series, Shoaib got the wickets of Sehwag (for a duck), Sachin (for 1) and Laxman (for 71) at the expense of 47 runs in 21 point something overs (injured his wrist whilst bowling the 22nd, and didn't bowl after that again). Pakistan lost by an innings and 131 runs.
http://pak.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/2003-04/IND_IN_PAK/SCORECARDS/IND_PAK_T3_13-17APR2004.html
In the 1st test vs. Sri Lanka in Pakistan, in 2004-05 at Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad, Shoaib took 8 wickets in the match, only for Pakistan to lose it by 201 runs. He missed next test with injury.
http://pak.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/2004-05/SL_IN_PAK/SCORECARDS/SL_PAK_T1_20-24OCT2004.html
And I've already mentioned the five-for against Australia in Perth and Melbourne, followed by the shakey performance at Sydney
1st test:
http://pak.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/2004-05/PAK_IN_AUS/SCORECARDS/PAK_AUS_T1_16-20DEC2004.html
2nd test:
http://pak.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/2004-05/PAK_IN_AUS/SCORECARDS/PAK_AUS_T2_26-30DEC2004.html
3rd test: (played this when he was 50% fit)
http://statserver.cricket.org/db/ARCHIVE/2004-05/PAK_IN_AUS/SCORECARDS/PAK_AUS_T3_02-06JAN2005.html
Basically since the winning MoM for that memorable Wellington test he's played in 7 test matches taking 26 wickets at about 31, and in his last 10 tests he's taken 53 wickets at about 20.03 (a good 4.75 less then career average of 24.78), and in his last 5 he's taken 22 wickets at 25.27. None of these stats resemble anything like the miserable failure you deemed he has had.
What I agree with is that Shoaib has a problem. And that is his fitness and lack of submissiveness to the team ethic. What I disagree with conclusion that he is “useless” (quite clearly he is not) and the allegation that he is more concerned with carrying out gimmicks than actually take wickets. The days when a breaking speed barrier was a priority are a thing of the past, to me it seems that it is the media more then anyone else that is ‘obsessed’ with Shoaib’s pace factor. Because the Shoaib I saw getting consecutive 5-fors against Australia on their home territory, doing well against SA, Sri Lanka & NZ is the Shoaib that thrived on variation in both pace and length, reverse and conventional swing, seam movement, as well as deception.
I can understand it must be hard to believe this if you’re anything but a Pakistani fan, but he nevertheless does know how to get wickets, and has progressively matured into an intelligent bowler. That is not the problem. What is the problem is that he’s not matured into the spearhead of our attack, the role model for others that we would have liked him to be and that he does not remain fit enough both mentally and physically to play uninterruptedly for Pakistan. The issue here, sadly, is not to do with ability; it’s to do with attitude.
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