Pakistan's African tour

 

Pakistan's last tour of South Africa wasnt a very fruitful one. In the last tour of South Africa in 2019 under Sarfraz Ahmed's leadership Pakistan lost the test series 0-3, lost the ODI series 2-3, and last but not the least lost the Twenty20 Series 1-2 to South Africa. This time we have Babar Azam leading Pakistan in all the three formats. 

Given that South Africa is  almost a formidable team at home, I dont rate Pakistan's chances very highly on South Africa leg of the tour. Pakistan doesnt have a very established opening pair. The batting is too heavily reliant on Babar Azam and there are hardly any Pakistani batsmen who score runs freely. For many years now Pakistan has been lacking in hard striking and hard hitting batsmen. This is the reason why Pakistan's run rate is so slow in ODI cricket and they hardly score runs in excess of 300 runs which is a necessity in modern day ODI cricket. Their bowling is okay but they lack penetration and consistency at times.

In Twenty 20 cricket I am pretty hopeful we will give South Africa a fight and win atleast one or two matches against them. We have a pretty good Twenty20 team and our players style of play and abilities suit Twenty20 Cricket.

In Zimbabwe leg of the tour I am pretty hopeful and I hope Pakistan doesnt prove me wrong that Pakistan will whitewash Zimbabwe in both the Tests and Twenty20 series. Corruption and politics have weakened the Zimbabwe team as can be seen in their losses recently to a lowly ranked Afghanistan team.

I wish Pakistan cricket team best of luck for their African tour of South Africa and Zimbabwe. I am not so optimistic this time as under the current management of Misbah ul Haq and Waqar Younis Pakistan cricket team has hardly won overseas and won almost every series at home but not abroad.