Pakistan and India are set to face each other tomorrow at Melbourne Cricket Ground as they begin their T20 World Cup campaigns.

While Pakistan possesses a lethal pace attack featuring Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf and Naseem Shah as their main bowlers, the batting still might be the weak point. With Australian conditions greatly favoring the bowlers, let’s have a look at how Pakistan can tackle the Indian bowling attack.

Pakistan’s batting unit is built around the formidable opening pair of Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan. Having two best-ranked T20I batters in the world, Pakistan still at times struggle to dominate with the bat, and even when India’s pace attack might not be as star-studded on paper as Pakistan’s pack, Indian bowlers know fully well how to execute the conditions to their advantage. Hence, batting is what Pakistan needs to plan for, carefully and tactically.

MCG’s Death Over Blues

Pakistan, as a batting side, believe in saving wickets in the first half of the game and look to accelerate at the backend of the innings. However, MCG’s nature seems the other way around. The venue is statistically tougher than average for the batters in the death overs. Thus, Pakistan’s batting unit will need to change its approach of just hitting at the death.

Building the Innings

Although the T20 format tilts towards the batters mostly, hitting boundaries in Australia is not a walk through the park. According to the stats, the percentage of boundaries hit by batters in Australia is fairly less as compared to other countries. Simultaneously, most runs come from rotating the strike.

Assessing the situation, Pakistan can use the conditions well if they do not try to hit it in the air every single time and rather try to maximize their score by finding gaps to get singles and doubles. Another advantage for Pakistan can be their opening duo as Babar Azam likes hitting it for fours through the gaps and Mohammad Rizwan can reply to the bouncers with his pull shots.

In short, Pakistan should attack the Indian bowlers in the powerplay while fielders are inside the circle and then try to carry the rhythm through the middle overs so that they have a solid base before going reckless in the death overs.

Beating Bouncers

Talking about bouncers, Pakistan should be extremely careful against the short balls. Records show that Pakistani batters have been clueless while facing short balls and India seems to be fully aware of this fact. The bouncy pitches of Australia offer a great deal of support for bowlers to ball lethal bouncers and Pakistan struggle against the short length. Hence, how the individuals plan to tackle the short ball will make a huge difference for Pakistan’s overall batting.

Making Most Out of Match-ups

Moreover, promoting Shadab Khan and Mohammad Nawaz up the order as per match-ups can be a game-changing move for Pakistan because it will help put the Indian bowlers under pressure and overall add to the depth of the batting line-up.

The flexible order has worked wonders for Pakistan recently and it has also helped the power hitters in unlocking their potential. With Shadab Khan and Mohammad Nawaz utilizing their low-value wickets to take on the spinners in the middle overs, Iftikhar Ahmad and Asif Ali get to face the pacers which provides the tactical stability to the batting outfit of Pakistan.

Conclusion

While Pakistan relies on its pace attack to limit the Indian batters, they must plan perfectly to stop the Indian bowlers from doing the same. Australia has always been a tough venue for batters, hence Pakistan will have to be a very fine and balanced batting unit to prevent a horrible collapse on the bouncy track of MCG. In this regard, the main batters, Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan will have to build a seamless foundation for the middle order to stand on. The final word for Pakistani batters to remember and repeat is; to keep the scoreboard ticking.

Source: Pro Pakistan