Pakistan win, but should we cheer?

Pakistan won the second ODI against Sri Lanka in Colombo. Although the victory is welcome, there is little in the performance to cheer, save the bowling performance.

With some disciplined and tight seam bowling, Sri Lanka were dismissed for 130, and at one point were 56 for 7. Rana Naved with 3-23, Mohammad Asif with 1-22, Iftikhar Anjum with 2-13 and Abdul Razzaq with 2-19 bowled substantially better than the past, and bowled well. The fielding was also crisp, for the first time in a while. This should have been a lot to cheer, but the batting turned that around to ensure that fans did plenty of nail biting. Salman Butt, Shahid Afridi were gone by the end of the fourth over, and Younis Khan in the 10th. Inzamam-ul-Haq soon follwed, as did Shoaib Malik, and Pakistan were at 47-5 in the 15th over. It almost seemed all lost.

Yousuf and Razzaq, however, were able to utilize their skills to score off singles and when the opportunity presented itself, the boundaries. In fact, Yousuf in a 60 ball innings, hit one boundary! And then, Pakistan's second talisman after Inzamam, Kamran Akmal came to the crease, and the target which at 82 for 6 seemed formidable, became a mere formality and Pakistan took the match by 4 wickets.

The Pakistani batting has to be sorted out, specially the all problematic opening pair. I thought the ODI pair was settled with Kamran and Salman Butt, but Woolmer seems to like the idea of tossing in Afridi in there every now and then. This inclination has to be curbed. I love Shahid Afridi, but there needs to be some consistency in the selection. Further, Younis, Inzamam and Yousuf need to start batting in ODIs like the foundation for the team that they are. Its not a good example for the junirors to take a score like 133 so casually, and almost lose a certain win.