Pakistan’s tour to Zimbabwe: Not much promising signs for the tourists – Zimbabwe Tour Memories

Before heading to Zimbabwe, the Pakistan cricket team was confident of a whitewash victory in all three formats of the game. They had beaten West Indies on the Caribbean soil, which is not an easy task by any means. Moreover, the wickets in Zimbabwe have always been friendly for the batters, which meant that there was no major threat to the visitors.

On the other hand, the home side had been hammered in a recently concluded series against India, so their confidence was on the lower side. Above that, they had some salary issues with the cricket board, which led them to consider boycotting the series.

Everything was looking good for the Men in Green and they got off to a positive start in the two-match Twenty20 series. The batting looked extremely positive, as Ahmed Shehzad clobbered the opposition bowlers to all parts of the park. The bowlers did not have any trouble, defending the strong totals set by their batters whereas the fielding was also top notch.

Then came the ODI series, which was also expected to be one-sided. However, that was not the case, as Pakistan failed to post a challenging total in the first match and were restricted to 244 runs in their allotted 50 overs. Although the team threatened to reach more than 300 runs at one stage of the game, yet another batting collapse saw them in a difficult situation on a flat batting strip.

Despite the inconsistent batting display, Pakistan would have hoped to do some wonders with the ball, especially with their big-three Mohammad Irfan, Junaid Khan and Saeed Ajmal, in the side. Since the wicket was not offering any assistance to the bowlers, even these three failed to cause any serious problems for the hosts.

On top of that, the fielding was not up to standards for unknown reasons, which allowed the Zimbabwean cricket team to register a historic victory. Although they went onto lose the next two games, they managed to save some pride for their country.

Finally, the Test series started with Pakistan once again being the hot favourites to succeed. Veteran batsman Younis Khan returned to the side and Asad Shafiq also strengthened the middle order. Despite that the tourists could only manage 249 runs in their first innings, which included a gutsy 49-run knock from Saeed Ajmal towards the end of the innings.

On the other hand, Zimbabwe battled their way to 327 runs in the first innings, which was a shame for the opposition. Ajmal was once again in action, scalping seven wickets whereas there was some support for him from Junaid, who bagged a couple.

Even though Pakistan win the match from this point onwards, the cricket board needs to take some serious action to eliminate the weak links from the side and develop a stronger unit. With all due respect to Rahat Ali and khurram Manzoor, there are better players than them waiting for a chance in the side. So, it is about time that they are given a green signal, so that they can strengthen the team and build a solid foundation for the future.