anyone who has seen zia bat should know that for every 6 he hits he probably misses 3+ balls. hitting 6s is nice an all but he misses many which also could be scored off. he needs to develop his game to a point where he can take advantage of any ball and can knock the ball around. it's criminal to have so many dot balls in the last few overs. against quality bowlers he might get a couple of good shots in but will be taken out unless he improves.
anyone his batting isn't really the issue imo. if you're going to bat at #7 or lower you need to be a strong contributor with the ball. zia's batting would be fine, in actual fact it would be a great bonus if he was a quality bowler adding good value to the bowling unit. but since he rarely bowls and rarely contributes in anyway let alone a significant one with the ball, then his batting becomes the main reason for his selection and i'm sorry but i think if someone is going to be selected as the quicker scorer down the order and he isn't being utilised as a bowler then they need to be a batsman who can play pretty well in lots of different situations rather than just someone who slogs. because basically zia is playing as a specialist batsman and there is no way we can consider him to be specialist batsman quality, he needs to have a good array of shots, be able to take singles as well so that he can be pushed up the order if wanted.
national team positions should be more valuable than that, only players who offer some versatility and quality should gets spots otherwise the selection is being wasted imo. imagine if zia has to come in with 15 overs to go? which could easily happen if he's batting at #7, i'm sure we would be much better off with a specialist batsman or an allrounder with greater capabilities, we'd probably score more runs overall.
if he learns to hit 1s and 2s and not waste so many balls then he could be really good, but he's not there yet.
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All Time Test XI: 1 Hobbs 2 B.Richards 3 Bradman 4 Kohli 5 V.Richards 6 Sobers 7 Gilchrist 8 Miller 9 Procter 10 Marshall 11 Warne
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