lets not close the coffin yet!!!

[al Furqaan]

all is not over for this asia cup. i too wanted, and actully did hurl curses at our boys after yesterdays match with india. but i let emotion get the best of me...lets look at the positives: our best batsmen at the moment was out (javed), ash played well, tarek bowled well after his hellish first over...razzaq's economy is still very good tho he didnt take any wickets, tapash didnt play for some reason beyond my abilities. i stated earlier that there would be dissappointing days, and yesterday fit the bill.

we still have 2 matches left and then champions trophy matches against WI and south africa...hopefully we will fight better than we have against pak and india.

our main problem is batting...i am begiging to doubt whether this generation can change things. it seems that rana, rajin, and co. will always score at a SR of 60 at best and we will have low scores for a while to come. we will need to get better batsmen...perhaps nafis (both of them) and aftab can join ash as guys who can push our score.

bowling wise, we are very good at restricting our opponents, but we have yet to do what other bowlers do, namely rip apart top order batsmen. SL's bowlers did it last night against pak and reduced them to 45-5 or something. India didnt quite do it to us as we were 83-3 at one point, but still we have to bowlers who can reduce teams to 50-4 or so. otherwise we cannot invoke fear in our opponents.

all is not lost, we have made vast improvements and sometimes it will seem as though we are digressing but slumps happen to all teams and we should just keep trying.

[Edited on 21-7-2004 by al Furqaan]

[Edited on 21-7-2004 by al Furqaan]