By Syed Mahmood Sharazi
At the end of every year, where people review their lives, today we will review the performance of Pakistan Cricket Team, what Pakistan Cricket Team has lost and gained during 2022.
Although international cricket in Pakistan had been revived since the previous era of Najam Sethi, but due to the arrival of Australia, New Zealand and England, 2022 is considered to be the year of revival of cricket in Pakistan in real sense. In the year 2022, Australia after 24 years, New Zealand after 20 years and England after 17 years entered Pakistan and played Test, ODI and T20I matches against Pakistan.
On the other hand, this year Pakistan cricket team captain Babar Azam has set individual records, but his captaincy has been criticized for four successive defeats in Tests and not winning a single Test match in the entire year on Pakistan soil. During 2022, Pakistan cricket team played four test series at home and abroad. Captain Babar Azam won only one of these matches while Pakistan team lost five matches while three matches were drawn. Australians visited Pakistan after 24 years and won the series 1-nil. After the tour of Australia, Pakistan went to Sri Lanka and there the two-match series was tied with 1-1. After that, allegations of match-fixing were also made against the Sri Lankan cricket team, which is being investigated. Under the leadership of Ben Stokes, the English cricket team became the first team to whitewash Pakistan on its soil. Pakistan’s first Test match against New Zealand also ended without a decision, while the second Test, which began in Karachi on January 2, is ongoing, where New Zealand scored 449 runs in the first innings.
Thus, during 2022, Pakistan cricket team played 9 test matches in which six matches were defeated, two were drawn and only one test was won by Pakistan cricket team. In 2022, on the contrary, Pakistan’s record in ODIs was better, playing nine ODIs throughout the year, the Pakistan team won eight matches while losing only one match. Pakistan started the year against Australia. won the ODI series 2-1 at home, while sweeping the series against the West Indies and the Netherlands. During 2022, Pakistan played 26 T20 International matches, including the finals of the ICC World Cup and Asia Cup. Out of this, 14 matches were won by the green shirts, while they lost in 12. In the tri-nation series in New Zealand, the green shirts won the trophy by defeating the host team in the final.
On the other hand, We talk about the ICC ranking, the Pakistan cricket team ended the year at the third position in T20, fifth in ODIs and sixth in Tests in the ICC team ranking. But his batsmen, especially Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan, were among the top five throughout the year. Even now, Mohammad Rizwan is second and Babar Azam is fourth in the T20I batsmen’s rankings, while Babar Azam is first in ODIs and 2nd in Test Batting Ranking. And Imam-ul-Haq is at the second position in ODIs. In the list of bowlers, Pakistan was represented only by Shaheen Shah Afridi, who is currently at the fifth position in the ODI ranking and at the seventh position in the Test ranking.
Babar Azam played 9 Test matches during 2022 and he became the highest scorer of 1184 Test runs that year. Apart from this, he became the only Pakistani batsman to cross the milestone of 2500 runs in 12 months and became the third captain of the world. The batsman, who led Pakistan in all three formats, set a new record by scoring 2584 runs in international cricket in one year.
During the year, he scored 1184 runs in Test cricket, 679 runs in One Day Internationals and 735 runs in T20 Internationals, breaking the record of his compatriot Muhammad Yusuf established in 2006. Muhammad Yousuf scored 2435 runs in Tests and One Day Internationals in 2006. After Babar Azam, opening batsman Imam-ul-Haq was the second highest run scorer in Test cricket. He scored 837 runs with three centuries in 8 matches while Abdullah Shafiq scored 823 runs with three centuries in nine matches. Saud Shakeel, who made his Test debut this year, also performed brilliantly and finished fourth with 423 runs with 5 half-centuries in four matches. After Babar Azam, Imam-ul-Haq was second in ODIs this year, who scored 505 runs in eight matches with two centuries and four half-centuries. Fakhar Zaman scored 303 runs in nine matches wiht one century. During 2022, with the help of ten half-centuries in 25 matches, wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Razwan stood out by scoring 996 runs. After him, captain Babar Azam scored 705 runs with a century in 26 matches. This year, Babra Azam was the only batsman to score a century for Pakistan in all three formats.
Now we Talk about bowling, Karachi spinner Abrar Ahmed, who made his Test debut in 2022, took the first position with 23 wickets in three test matches. On the second place, fast bowler Naseem Shah took eighteen wickets in five Test matches. During 2022,Fast Bowler Haris Rauf ,who took most wickets in both ODI and T-20 format. He took 15 wickets in seven matches in ODIs and 31 wickets in 23 matches in T20Is. In international events during 2022, the Pakistan cricket team played the final of the Asia Cup and the final of the T20 Cricket World Cup, but the national cricket team faced failure in both finals. In the last month of 2022, the chairmanship of the Pakistan Cricket Board was handed over from Rameez Raja to Najam Sethi.
