PAKISTAN’S disastrous campaign in the ICC WorldT20 in India has come for a lot of criticism in the media as well as by the former players and critics, and deservedly so.

However, I would like to point out some key mistakes that the national team and the management committed at the mega event that eventually saw them crashing out before the semi-finals.

A: Team combination:

At no point in the competitive tournament did the Pakistan team and management got the combination right for the matches.

Even in the opening game against Bangladesh, which we won handsomely, the loopholes were quite evident. Firstly, going with three left-arm pacers, one left-arm spinner and one right arm leg-spinner against a batting line-up that have three left handers in top four positions didn’t make much sense.

In my opinion, Pakistan should have included a right-arm pacer for that game. Had our batting not scored heavily, it might have proved costly against Bangladesh to with an all left-arm pace attack.

Then, in the game against India, the decision to drop Imad Wasim made no sense while Mohammad Hafeez batted at number 7 which to date remains a mystery. If that was part of the plan then Imad should have played in place of Hafeez as he could have also been the third spinner on that pitch.

Pitch reading is an art but also a risk because anyone can make a mistake there. Dhoni misread it as well against Pakistan but he didn’t take the unacceptable amount of risk by going in with four pacers in the first place. It was not a pacers pitch by any means but it seems that Pakistan was hoping the pitch to be pacer friendly and jumped the gun by naming the playing XI before the covers were removed. That mistake proved too costly for our campaign.

In the game against New Zealand, the decision to drop Wahab Riaz instead of leaving out Mohammad Irfan didn’t look right. It was a slowish pitch with not much pace and bounce in it and Irfan’s natural bounce made it even easier for New Zealand batsman to score off him. With his slingy action and the skiddy nature of his bowling, Wahab on that surface would have been a better choice as it turned out in the game against Australia.

B: Tactical decisions — batting and bowling orders

It was very obvious, like many times during the past contests, that Pakistan team planning heavily depended on the toss. As it turned out, we won the toss only against Bangladesh and won the match.

In all the other games which Pakistan lost, the team erred badly with their predetermined and predefined plans that lacked the flexibility to change according to the environment and match situation.

For instance, in the match against India Sharjeel struggled and got out after 7.4 overs and by then, everyone had realised that the pitch is not as flat and certainly not suitable for Shahid Afridi’s style of play. On that pitch the batsmen who play spin well like Hafeez, Shoaib Malik and Sarfraz Ahmed would have done better. Instead of Afridi promoting himself to one-down, Pakistan should have stuck with Hafeez at number 3 and if the innings needed an impetus, should have sent Sarfraz up the order. He was the man in form and had scored consistently up the order in the Asia Cup as well.

Then, in the match against Australia, Malik should have bowled at least a couple of overs instead of Mohammad Sami bowling at that stage. Sami bowled the second and the fifth over and went for 21 runs in 2 overs to make it that he was struggling with his rhythm, line and length.

On the other hand, Afridi gave away 27 runs himself while Imad went for 31 off his 4. Considering the situation, Afridi should have inducted Malik to bowl a couple of overs. Pakistan lost by 21 runs and Sami gave away 32 runs in his last 2 overs which he should not have bowled at all after his first erratic spell. Here too, better planning could have benefitted Pakistan tremendously.

Besides, in both games against New Zealand and Australia where Pakistan was facing mainly left-arm spinners and leg-break bowlers, our right-handed batsmen were struggling to play freely. It could have been worth promoting Imad Wasim up the order then to either make use of those angles or force the opposition alter their plans.

Another setback for Pakistan was Mohammad Amir’s poor form with the ball in most games, especially the death overs where he clearly struggled.

In the first two games where Pakistan bowled second, Amir had figures of 2-24 in 4 overs and 1-11 in 3 overs. In the last two games where Pakistan bowled first, Amir had the figures of 0-41 and 0-39.

Against New Zealand he bowled the 17th and the 20th over and gave away 11 and 16 runs without taking any wicket. Pakistan lost to Kiwis by 22 runs and those runs proved to be decisive.

Similarly, in the game against Australia, Amir again bowled the 17th and the 20th over and gave away 17 and 12 runs respectively.

Another big tactical error was that Sarfraz was grossly under-utilised throughout the tournament, especially in the game against India where the pitch and conditions suited his style of batting.

I am also a big fan of Sharjeel Khan since I believe he can change the complexion of the match in the first few overs. He proved that by giving delightful starts against New Zealand and Australia but the other players ruined the platform by not capitalising on it which left so many question marks.

Ahmed Shehzad scored 16 off 11 balls with 3 fours in partnership with Sharjeel but after his departure, Ahmed managed only 14 off 21 deliveries which was really puzzling. Quite alarmingly, not a single boundary was hit between 6.1 to 12.2 overs.

Umar Akmal came in when Pakistan were 79/2 after just 8.2 overs. But he scored at a snail’s pace, 24 off 26 balls, and failed to hit a single without boundary between 8.2 to 17.4 overs.

Malik came in when Pakistan needed 58 runs off 29 balls with 6 wickets in hands — tough but not impossible. He tried to hit the ball out of the park only once and that was the first delivery he faced. He ended up 15 not out off 13 balls without going for any big hits.

Collectively Ahmed Shehzad, Umar Akmal and Shoaib Malik scored 53 runs off 60 balls in huge contrast to Afridi and Sharjeel who collectively scored 66 runs off 34 balls.

Khalid Latif, who played his last match against Australia in 2010 in a final, got a chance after six years against New Zealand during this WorldT20, so what could one have expected from him. Still he scored a brisk 41 in the Australia game but that weren’t enough.

In my opinion, he is still the best batsman in Pakistan if he works on his fitness but some of the selectors ruined his career by not selecting him when he was required in the team.

C: Team management and atmosphere in dressing room

There were multiple controversies that were unnecessarily created during the tournament and could easily have been avoided.

Things like Afridi’s controversial statement about getting more love in India, the untimely press briefing and media talk of the chairman in the middle of the tournament, especially, talking about the future captain and the coach, over-publicising of Imran Khan’s meeting with the team before the crucial match against India, Coach Waqar Younis’ needless and controversial press briefing after the New Zealand defeat, etc.

All these things directly affected the team, of course, and created a negative impact which in tun resulted in poor performance on the field.

Shaharyar’s strong statements about the captain and head coach surely forced both men to ponder about their own future after that instead of focusing on the team’s performance in the tournament.

The India-Pakistan game is always a tension-filled contest and the game at the World T20 had gained so much hype. It would have been in the best interest of the players and the team to stay away from excessive media attention before the match which Imran Khan’s meeting created at the time.

Even if the meeting had taken place, it was best to keep it a low key affair. But as it turned out, the video leak of the conversation between Imran Khan and Umar Akmal naturally created some bad blood in the team camp which could have easily been avoided.

Waqar’s hard-hitting press conference after the New Zealand match was quite inappropriate. Pakistan was still in the tournament and being the coach he should not have said all those things in public, especially his taunting remarks about Akmal.

The writer is a former Pakistan captain

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2016