Pakistan plays its first match on February 23 against Kenya, but it is still not clear what bowling strategy they have for the World Cup.
The most important thing is to decide about Shoaib Akhtar. Should Pakistan take the risk of playing him? His fitness always remains in doubt. A senior team official has already expressed concerns about Akhtar.
If he comes back to pavilion in any match after bowling two or three overs, Pakistan will suffer a lot because Afridi’s bowling change options will be reduced.
Moreover, he went for more than six runs an over against England in the warm up match. He remained quite unimpressive in the recent series against New Zealand.
Although skipper Afridi has supported him for the last one year, he would not be able to do so in the World Cup if Akhtar fails to perform even in one match. Wahab Riaz has been very impressive every time he has got an opportunity to play for Pakistan in the last eight months. He together with Umar Gul and Abdul Razzaq will be a sufficient fast bowling attack.
Then another question is: will Pakistan play with four pace bowlers as they did in New Zealand, relying on Shahid Afridi and Mohammad Hafeez for spin bowling? It would be a folly if Pakistan did this. That was New Zealand. Now they have to bowl on subcontinent pitches, which never support fast bowlers.
They must include either Saeed Ajmal or Abdul Rehman if they are to win matches in this part of the world. Three pacers would be more than enough. They can even do with just two pacers as did Sri Lanka and India in the 1996 competition.
India had just Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad. And these two bowled only 15 overs in the semifinal against Sri Lanka. Tendulkar, Kumble and Kapoor bowled 10 overs each.
Sri Lanka had only Chaminda Vaas and Vickramasinghe and these two bowled just 13 overs in the final against Australia. The real job was done by regular and part-time spinners.
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