eleven is too many

Pakistan needn't worry about silly things like having an 11 man team.

When we started the series I was ecstatic that four specialist bowlers were playing, instead of the Razzaq/Afridi/Malik types that Woolmer seems to love from so deep within the most sensitive parts of his cock. Alas, my joy was unjustified after all. It appears that even if we had sported a team of 11 bowlers, only two of them (Kaneria and Asif) would have bowled. Asif may be our best option for taking wickets, but after his having bowled 40 overs in an innings even I'd fancy my chances of lasting a couple of his overs. At this rate, he may suffer a heart attack before the end of the series. Let's just hope that Nandrolone doesn't wear off anytime soon.

This is bad not only for Asif, but also for the other bowlers. Sure, in the second match it was justified, given Shoaib's "injury," (more on this later) but the way he was overbowled in the first test was retarded. Pakistan started the innings needing to bowl out South Africa for under 199, on a 5th day track that wasn't unplayable but not exactly flat either. The 60.5 overs that ensued were distributed as follows: Kaneria - 24.5, Asif - 14, Hafeez - 12, Rana - 7, Nazir - 3.

Why did Rana and Nazir even play? Just to fill up spaces in the team? What is this going to do to their egos? "You guys are good, but, er, right now we need wickets, so hang back and let Asif the maestro handle it."

About batsmen. Why have so many? It's not as if they score any runs. Seems to me the (two) bowlers do a pretty decent job of getting runs. In fact, if they were to replace Yousuf, Younis, Inzi, and all the tail-enders with a bunch of Imran Farhats, I doubt our team would make it past 100 anywhere but in Pakistan. So why bother with all of them? Play the only 3 batsmen that matter.

What about wicketkeepers? Who needs one? If Akmal's performance is any guide, it doesn't really matter if we have someone back there at all. We could do with a little wall the size of Akmal just fixed behind the stumps, just to stop things from going to the boundary. Catches are overrated anyway.

So 3 batsmen, 2 bowlers. Then they should pick 6 random people from among the spectators to come and play. Who knows, they might score 8 runs each, and that's 48 bonus runs that all the Yasir Hameeds in the world couldn't get you. They say Pakistan is unpredictable anyway. Why try and dispel the stereotype?

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cross-posted at cricket.bloggers.pk