By SS
May 19 2003

Pakistan have to beat New Zealand tomorrow to stand any chance of reaching the final in this low scoring triangular tournament. Key batsmen Yousuf Youhana and Younis Khan need to stamp their authority in this match for Pakistan to have any chance of winning. With New Zealand beating Sri Lanka today in another low scoring affair in Dambulla, the pressure is on Pakistan to beat the Kiwis tomorrow and also to overtake the Sri Lankan run rate.

The Pakistani batting continues to disappoint and there are likely to be at least one or two changes to the team for tomorrows crucial encounter. The batsman on these difficult pitches seem to be lacking confidence and it is going to take a big innings from one of the experienced duo of Yousuf Youhana or Younis Khan to see Pakistan to a big total.

Yousuf Youhana has been a major flop in this competition having got himself out with poor shot selection and the time is surely right for him to show his class. Taufeeq Umar has also struggled for runs and will be under pressure to get out of this slump. The Pakistani batsman like most of the batsman in this tournament, seem to be getting starts and then getting themselves out.

The defeat against Sri Lanka was extremely poor. Agreed this is a young group of players who are still in the process of learning, but chasing 172 runs they seemed to buckle under pressure. The interesting thing for me though is that a lot of the pressure was self inflicted, by negative batting. Instead of rotating the strike and putting the Lankan fielders under pressure, the Pakistani batsman tried to preserve wickets by just playing out dot balls.

Playing out over after over is ok to a certain extent, but sooner rather than later one has to increase the tempo. It’s easier to maintain a steady run rate of 3 or 4 singles an over rather than trying to play the big shots on wickets such as Dambulla.

It is do or die tomorrow and it will be interesting to see how the Pakistani batsman cope with the likes of Tuffey, Oram, Mills and Vettori. Although we keep hearing from Rashid Latif and Javed Miandad that this is a youthful team feeling its way into international cricket, it would still be a huge disappointment if Pakistan crashed out of this tournament tomorrow with a string of low scores.