Misbah ul Haq, the Pakistan captain, is extremely impressed with Nasir Jamshed’s performance in the second One Day International (ODI) of the on-going series at Abu Dhabi and admitted that the left-hander made the chase very easy for his side.
Having won the toss on a flat batting track, Australia opted to bat first and posted a competitive total of 248 runs on the board.
Historically, Pakistan are not a good chasing team and the analysts were expecting a close fight in the second innings. However, the home team’s top-order batsmen rose to the occasion and blasted the Australian bowling attack.
The left-hander from Lahore smashed 97 runs off just 98 balls with the help of eleven boundaries and a couple of thundering hits over the leg-side boundary. Jamshed was unlucky not to have completed his century, but his knock turned out to be a match-winning one.
Pakistan’s captain believes that both the Pakistani openers like to play their strokes and is happy that one of them (Jamshed) went on to play a big knock in the crunch fixture.
"Mohammad Hafeez and Nasir Jamshed are [naturally] aggressive batsmen. If they stay at the crease they will score runs quickly. [Jamshed], especially, played many shots and [had a] wonderful balance. The key for us [was that] he batted through and he made this chase easy," said Misbah.
With the series level at 1-1, the last ODI is going to be played on Monday, September 3rd at Sharjah.
Taking into account the visitors’ vulnerability against the turning ball, Pakistan may well think about including another spinner in the team. Misbah did not rule out the possibility but maintains that the role of fast bowlers cannot be ignored because of the dew factor, which makes it extremely hard for the spinners to grip the ball.
"[Playing a fourth spinner] depends on what sort of wicket we get [in Sharjah]," he added. "One more thing we have to keep in mind [is that] we may have to bowl again second time, so it might be a problem for the spinners [because of the dew factor]. We have to look into everything."
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