da blaze casino： With their century stand in Pakistan’s win over West Indies in the World Cup quarter-final, Mohammad Hafeez and Kamran Akmal could well be Pakistan’s solution to their long-standing opening woes
Osman Samiuddin25-Mar-2011
With their century stand in Pakistan’s win over West Indies in the World Cup quarter-final, Mohammad Hafeez and Kamran Akmal have provided their team with the much needed stability at the top of the order•Getty Images
The one piece in the jigsaw Pakistan have been unable to fit during theWorld Cup has been, to no great surprise, the opening partnership. Forfive matches in the group stages, with commendable patience, they stuckwith Ahmed Shehzad and Mohammad Hafeez despite the pair putting on ahighest of 28.Eventually they chose to drop Shehzad for the game against Australia;Hafeez’s skills as an offspinner enough to retain him. The change meant areuniting of one of Pakistan’s more successful ODI opening pairs in recentyears, of Hafeez and Kamran Akmal. Almost immediately there was a return;the pair putting on an unbroken 113 against the West Indies in thequarter-final in Dhaka in the ten-wicket win.That was their second century stand in the ten ODIs in which they haveopened together, to go with four fifty starts and a healthy averageoverall of 62.55. Though they had opened twice before, in 2006-07, it waslast summer in the ODI series against England that they had an extendedand successful run, putting together stands of 62, 122, 8, 62 and 63 inthe series.But since then, in the continuing fall-out of the spot-fixing scandal, thepairing has been disrupted again, allowing Shahzaib Hasan, Imran Farhatand Shehzad to open with Hafeez. “There was a problem in opening; theperformance that was expected wasn’t happening, like we had in Englandwith Kamran,” Hafeez told ESPNcricinfo. “In Abu Dhabi I had different guyslike Shahzaib, Imran Farhat opening with me; in New Zealand Shehzad wasthere. So it was difficult to adjust to everyone.”But Hafeez has always felt most comfortable with Akmal, with whom thecontrast in intent works well. “I have opened before with Kamran andobviously, when you play together, you understand each other’s game,”Hafeez said.”When Kamran plays with me, I have great confidence because I know heattacks the bowlers. He plays beautiful shots and the opposition gets underpressure. I actually find batting easier because I know he is attackingthe bowlers at the other end. That gives me confidence in playing my ownshots.”The domestic and international careers of both have overlapped to a largeextent and they know each other well off the field as well, spending timetogether in Lahore. Kamran’s younger brothers Adnan and Umar also playwith Hafeez for Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd (SNGPL) on the domesticcircuit in Pakistan.”Hafeez has been doing so well since the England series with ball andbat,” Akmal told ESPNcricinfo. “He brings so much confidence to the team.I love batting with him because we have a good understanding. Wecommunicate with each other all the time at the wicket, talking about thewicket, the bowler, what we need to keep doing. If one of us is strugglinga little, the other is always there to help him out. I had thatunderstanding with Salman Butt as well.”