Twenty20 squads have no room for test players...

...unless of course you're Ricky Ponting, or some other batsman of that calibre. And I agree with this sentiment. In order to succeed in Twenty20 cricket, squads need to be picked that include young, aggressive batsmen that have experience in the twenty over format. England, recently picked their team and included only their 20 over specialists. It is pointless to include test players or even ODI middle order batsmen. I disagree with the idea that a good batsman is a good batsman over the course of 100 overs, 50 overs, or 5 overs. Not true at all.

I'd much rather have Shahid Afridi bat for 12 balls, then Mohammad Yousuf bat for those 12 balls in the shortest format of the game. England plays the most twenty20 games in the world today, and have selected players that have the most experience. Regardless of how good an international star is, or his career statistics, this format of the game is best suited to strokemakers and bashers.

The Pakistani squad for the Twenty20 WC just got selected and Mohd. Yousuf wasn't included. I think its a great squad! Osman Samiuddin over at Cricinfo was more than a bit peeved at this decision however. He writes...

From this they took a not inconsiderable leap and concluded - on what basis is still not clear - that Misbah-ul-Haq (ostensibly the replacement) might do the job better than Yousuf has been doing over the last year. Perhaps Misbah's impressive domestic Twenty20 average (just under 50) got him the nod over a man with over 14,000 international runs, 35 international hundreds and just off a patch so purple, popstar Prince would have been jealous.

Needless to say, that's convincing enough for me. Misbah has average of 50 in this version of the game, has played dozens more games and is reputed to be the most sold batsman in Pakistan's domestic scene. Yousuf is not cut out for 20 over cricket. We don't need someone who has a strike-rate of 100. We need batsmen with S.R's over 150 or 200. And Misbah has a shot at international cricket way too long ago. That really can't be reason enough to discount his ability. That was years ago and only a few games. Give the guy a chance!

As far as Razzak being knocked out. Well, this was a decision that finally makes sense. Pakistan cricket should be about winning games using the best players at our disposal. Why should stars of yesteryear be selected purely on the weight of their statistics. That's unfair to the current players, unprofessional and undeniably stupid. Fawad has his ODI shot and admittedly bungled it. Big deal. It was only one game. This kid has had such a tremendous year in domestic cricket that he deserves few more shots at the top level.

In any case, Twenty20 is any ones game on any one's day. Zimbabwe have as good a shot at winning this World Cup as do South Africa. Selection in this format is much less of a gamble than it is in test cricket. It's meant to be a fun format, for the crowds, so why bother getting worked up about selections? Just choose great fielders, accurate bowlers and aggressive batsmen. That's it. And if predictions are anything to live by, I feel that the Twenty20 cup will save the game and give it that breath of fresh air that it so desperately needs.

Pakistan just barely edges past West Indies in second ODI

Pakistan won the game by two wickets but your resident pessimist wasn't too ecstatic about the outcome. These close games, though usually quite fun to watch, are quite of the indicative of the downward slide in the fortunes of our ODI team. There was nothing encouraging about how we struggled to chase 152. It's evident that cracks still remain in our ODI unit and not much is improving. For one thing, is anyone else even wondering why we're playing so many all-rounders? We played 3 yesterday. Razzak, Malik, and Hafeez...

There are some positives. So Afridi is out. Good. And we played 4 specialist bowlers. Better! But then in Yousuf's absence, we continue to play our bits an pieces players on pitches that have something to offer. Have we not learned our lessons in England and during the Champions Trophy?

Needless to say, I am not too satisfied with this strategy. It may work while we play on our soil (though these latest pitches seem a bit odd), but its definitely going to backfire on South African pitches. Do we realize who we are going to be coming up against? Ntini, Pollock, Nel and company just completed their white-wash of India. SA are going to bounce us out till we cry.

Now I'm satisfied with any 2 out of Hafeez, Shoaib Malik and Imran Farhat for the opening slot. They're decent players, but we can all safely agree, that they're not the most technically sound batsmen. Hafeez and Farhat seem to have temporarily secured their opening slot for the time being, but Malik has not been too convincing of late. He has to shoulder the responsibility of a middle order batsmen, which he is clearly not...plus he's not really performing well of late. Yasir Hameed is in the squad. Let him have a game.

Malik, however, should be in our WC plans, as he IS a good batsmen and has done well for Pakistan in the one-down position. That position for the time being though, has been occupied by our VC, Younis Khan. I think he should be left out for the next game. I understand that he was probably Mohd. Yousuf's replacement, but shouldn't one replace a middle order batsmen with someone similar?

So the point being, we played with 7 guys yesterday who can bowl and bat, when I feel we should probably have replaced one of them at least with a specialist batsmen. Faisal Iqbal, Yasir Hameed are names that come to mind.