Shoaib Akhtar critical of Misbah, Malik

Former Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar has slammed skipper Misbah-ul-Haq and all-rounder Shoaib Malik for team’s poor performance in the One Day International series against England. Akhtar opined that the selection panel should send old players home and bring
in fresh blood in the side.

Akhtar’s comments came in the wake of a poor show by Pakistan’s late middle order in the fourth ODI. The Men in Green failed to capitalise on a solid foundation set by Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq. Misbah managed to score 40-odd runs but Malik once again was
very ordinary with the bat.

That prompted Akhtar to blast the performance of the team, singling out Malik and Misbah for heavy criticism.

“He has been playing for around 12 years and he has accomplished nothing big. He and some other players who used to wait for hours to meet with the then Board Chairman Nasim Ashraf were rewarded. He even targeted Shahid Afridi and wanted him to be sent home.
At one stage manager Talat Ali was prepared to send Afridi home but we all took a stand and said this would not happen,” he said of Malik.

He added, “Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq batted well today within their limitations. But the fact is that we need to blood attacking players in our one-day and T20 teams. What is most surprising is that Pakistan which is famous for producing pace bowlers is
today struggling in this department.”

As a result of a poor show by the Pakistani middle order, Team Green could only pile up 237 in the allotted quota of 50 overs. The English batting line-up is in great form at the moment and thus, this total cannot be taken as winning one.

While urging national selector to unearth new pace talent, the Rawalpindi Express lashed out at Misbah’s defensive approach. He put it in simple words that it is very difficult to produce good results without an attacking strategy.

“We need to find new fast bowlers or else we will find it difficult to even bowl out Bangladesh. What is he doing where is the aggression. You don’t see any aggression in his captaincy in this one-day series. He needs to rethink his policies,” shared the
former speed star.

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Posted by Rana Nasir Ghafoor on Feb 21 2012. Filed under Pakistan, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry