Post WorldCup Post

Someone has rightly said on social media, "Nothing can eradicate Pakistaniat from Pakistanis from across the world". But I will say it differently, " Nothing can unite Pakistan as Pakistanis but cricket world cup."

If you are a true Pakistani, you must have hoped Pakistan's entry into semi final of this great event until the last match against Bangladesh started. If you are not surprised by the above lines, you must go and watch sarfraz, when he said," we will try to score 500 and bowl out Bangladesh as early as possible, if miracle is to happen in our favor, we will definitely do it."

By saying this, what he really meant was *hope*.

Pakistani Team

We Pakistanis are emotionally attached to cricket, so is our reaction. So, sometimes it is hard to say right or wrong about ourselves, because sometimes we speak our emotions, and emotional reactions can not be categorized as right or wrong. Yes, abusive language is certainly wrong. In no way, it can be justified.

There are certain questions to be considered before we have a look on Pakistan's journey in WC19. These are,

Was team selection really good?

Were they (Cricket Team) really concerned about winning the cup before severe criticism after match against India?

Was there some dressing room politics against captain?

I leave it to you, to answer critically and unbiased.

Weaknesses and Strengths

Pakistan started its world cup journey with a worst performance against WI, scoring only 105 runs. Practically, this was the point where we went wrong at first. It gave us a burden of -5 run rate to make it positive ahead. Which later proved fatal. The second time we went wrong were the match against India. Half match was lost at the time of toss. Everyone knows that chasing is India's strength not ours, and we chose to fight with weakness vs weakness, and not strength vs strength. Although, in no way fielding second is a weakness of India. Our bowling is always our strength, although it was weak this time too, until recently. Such a big mistake it was.

Match planning was missing throughout the world cup, and the biggest example is of net run rate. Net run rate was ignored throughout. We could have improved it against New Zealand and Afghanistan. But lack of match planning costed us.

Team selection is in question. Everytime we lost a match, we dropped someone. It seems, team Selector was in doubt. Captain was unable to use his players.

Bouncing back with a strong will and dedication, so much so that you defeat the unbeatable, is only a trait of Pakistanis. Credit goes to the social Media critics.

We had openers who had good batting averages in their name, but they did not work. Even though we had a stumbling batting order, still we managed to win against two most favorite teams. One of which defeated us with 4-0 in ODI series, prior to world cup.

That is why people call Pakistani team as "Predictably unpredictable"

All in all, whatever happened, should be a life lesson for us. Pakistan should hunt for big batsmen all around the country and polish them to be able enough to play big tournaments and not pick once performing batsmen which people call half complete players. Four years are enough to accomplish this task. We need honest selection and then we expect honest performance. Players doing dressing room politics should be kicked out without any hesitation. Seniors should be respected and juniors should not be exploited. Farewell for retiring players is need of the hour. We need some power hitters in middle order like Asif Ali, but he should be groomed first.

What matters to us is World cup, show us some fight, we will not criticise you.