[al Furqaan]

Originally Posted by Beamer
I touched on what needs to be done to make them mentally tough. Now, to answer Miraz's question of where lies the problem of constant failures from positions of strength? I would have have to say TWO things that usually leads to that and we have an abundant of those TWO ingredients. One- Over confident players who start the collapse. Two- players who play with a lot of fear who continue and complete the collapse. Fear comes in many forms. Some are afraid of pace, some afraid of their low return of runs, some afraid of losing the next wkt, some afraid of keeping their spot in the place etc etc. You can not play with fear and our middle order traditionally have players who are exactly that. Tamim plays without any fear, gets his runs, but usually goes after a moment of overconfidence. Collapse happens in and around after his wkt. Then, we parade in Ash & Rock- two guys who are simply afraid of their future. Sakib follows, boasting a difficult state of mind, and he is obliging duely. Other opener is good for 30 -40 runs on a good day. So, there goes the entire top order in a matter of an eye blink. Then, some resistance comes from the bottom, because the pressure of winning is gone and they do some patch work. This is the current story. In the previous era, Bashar was the Tamim - he played without fear, but went agianst the run of play all of a sudden, which started the collapse just as now, because we have always managed to place the most vulnerable ( mental state ) cricketers in the middle to cope with adversity. Just as now, Pilot, Rafiq and co.back then salvaged the situation somewhat in lower order without having the pressure to win. Bottom line : You can not play any sport with fear. Look at our middle order now. Ash is afraid of his own life. He doesn't know whether he should live or die. Rok is glued to the ground. Sakib is not fearful but not in a positive frame of mind. No wonder the collpase is happening.

well said!