Azhar Ali cannot catch a break. While his side were being walloped in England this summer, his own decent form – second-highest scorer for Pakistan in the series – was overlooked.
Now, with his side walloping West Indies his lack of runs (a first-ball duck and nine so far) is right into the spotlight.
Affairs shift so quickly now that it was just over a month ago, after the fourth ODI defeat to England, that Pakistan’s limited overs game was languishing not just at the bottom of some rankings, but in another century; out of place like a balding 70s disco scenester at a millennium rave.
Since then they have won seven limited overs games in a row and, if not yet drinking from the elixir of modernity, the hair transplants seem to be battling the baldness.
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They have been greatly helped, let’s not forget, by an enfeebled West Indies side, but any ODI series win is progress for Pakistan – the depth of their ODI fall is evident in this being only the second series out of the last eight they have won in the UAE, and the first in nearly three years. Take out Zimbabwe and Ireland and it is only their second ODI series win anywhere in three years.
The feel around Azhar, though, well, that remains. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), it is no secret, wanted him to step down after the England series. He refused. They did not sack him. Now it has become awkward and uneasy.
He dropped a sitter the other night in Sharjah and was unusually irritable in the press conference thereafter. Riled by a poorly phrased question about his “lazy” captaincy, Azhar replied snarkily: “Should I jump around the field more?”
He has been touchy all through, and why not? It was up to the PCB to remove him if they so wished – Lahore Qalandars in the Pakistan Super League have, after all. But now, as a winning captain, if the PCB do remove him, it will inflame the situation, and he will have real reasons to be aggrieved.
For the moment, however, ahead of the final ODI in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, all is hunky dory. Or it is according to Pakistan’s management.
“He has been very good round the group, he has been outstanding,” said Mickey Arthur, Pakistan’s coach on Tuesday. “Watching him bat in the nets he is hitting the ball very, very well.
“He just needs a start and some time out in the middle. He has been bearing up very well, positive around the group.”
With or without him, Pakistan are in the process of happening upon a slightly more ODI-friendly combination than has been seen in the last year. They still lack modern, power-hitting options, though if Umar Akmal gets himself right that could go a small way to easing those worries.
But in the emergence of Babar Azam, Mohammed Nawaz, Imad Wasim and Hasan Ali, they are finding players with aptitude for the format as it is now.
Arthur has seen little improvements, rather than great leaps forward, enthusing, for instance, about the batting’s dot-ball reduction during the last ODI to 36 per cent (from 48 per cent in England).
“Our assessment is based on little goals that we set for ourselves as a unit, as a team so I am looking at lot more rotation of strikes, I am seeing us perform better in the last ten overs and I am looking at executing our skills better with the ball,” he said.
“West Indies are a very good sideand I would like people writing we played well rather than West Indies were playing poorly because they are a good team. We have got our own little goals that we set ourselves and it’s very pleasing to see us meeting those challenges.”
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