Hammad Shakil
Pakistan’s two most recent ODI series raised a few questions in my head. Seeing them get blown up against England was as surprising yet predictable as they nullified the West Indies in the UAE. Since I’ve been following cricket in general, and Pakistan cricket in particular, I’ve also noticed and made a habit of seeing two things; Pak are bound to lose in limited overs in the UAE, but they show a lot more spirit and success once they move overseas, a total contrast to what we see in Tests.
Pakistan currently sit at No. 8 in the ODI rankings, promoted from No. 9 (their lowest ever) beating the West Indies. There’s been a lot of talk and debate whether Pakistan are as bad a side as their ranking suggests. I did some digging, and found some predictable results but they were still astonishing to me. Stats always describe cricket, and I put around some stats to help find how Pakistan ODI cricket has gone around for the last six years. I’ve taken into account all the ODIs played by Pakistan in this decade. This doesn’t involve associates and Zimbabwe, but includes Bangladesh as they have transformed big time in the last two years, at least in ODI cricket. I’ve only considered bilateral series as a tournament can’t really describe a team’s journey and upsets do tend to happen every now and then.
Since Jan 01 2010, Pakistan have played 107 ODIs in bilateral series against the top 9 teams. They have won 43, lost 61 with a tie and 2 No-Results. You’ll look at those numbers and think Pakistan have lost a bunk of these games overseas but what numbers say is that they have lost plenty ‘at home’, even more than overseas. ICC’s formula gives equal weight to easy home wins and harder away wins, and even though it seems just, Pakistan have only suffered the dark side of it.
In the period mentioned above, Pakistan have played 65 away ODIs in bilateral series, most by any team, and won 26 while losing 36. Australia have played the second most away ODIs (60) and have won 27 of them while losing 30. No other team has played 50 away games, with Sri Lanka having played third most at 48. If we talk about winning, Australia have won most ODIs (27), and Pakistan come second with 26 wins, which is justified considering they have played the most number of games. South Africa come third with 21 wins out of 40. If we talk about W/L ratio, South Africa sit at the top with 1.23 W/L ratio, Australia come at second with 0.90, while India and Pakistan share the third position with 0.72. It’s a bit surprising Pak are at par with India and above England, New Zealand and Sri Lanka. If we talk about series to series, Pak always show great fight in away ODIs, starting with the tour of England in 2010, when they came back to level the series 2-2 before losing the last game to make it 2-3. In their next overseas assignment, they beat NZ and WI 3-2 in 2011. In 2012-13, with 13 arguably being their most successful year, they beat India 2-1, lost to SA 2-3 (losing the series decider), and then beat SA 2-1, becoming the first Asian team ever to do so. They didn’t play any major bilateral series in 2014, and post ICC Cricket World Cup 2015, they continuously downgraded, losing to Ban 0-3, but beat Sri Lanka to qualify for the ICC Champions Trophy 2017. They lost 0-2 to NZ and 1-4 to England in 2016, making their wins 26 and loses 36.
Now as generally teams are known for winning at home, Pakistan continuously lost at UAE, their ‘home’. They played 42 games there, winning only 17 while losing 25. They only won three series there and never clean swept a team until last month. While Australia have a 4.375 W/L ratio in this period, India 2.769, South Africa 1.750, England 1.560, New Zealand 1.473 and Sri Lanka 1.347, making it a list with all major teams having more than 1 W/L ratio, Pakistan managed to have just 0.680, even below than Bangladesh and the West Indies. They lost to England and South Africa twice, Australia and NZ including getting clean swept by England and Australia. While they showed some pretty numbers outside, at home they were completely at sea, causing their constant downfall and slump in the ODI rankings. They maintained their 6th ranking from 2010 till the mid of 2014 on the back of their overseas wins, but once they started to continuously lose there too, they slipped pretty hard and this time there weren’t any wins to back them up, throwing them to No. 9, their lowest ever, even the lowest ever by a major Test team. They only made it a little better by winning against the West Indies last month, but with the tour of Australia and the Champions Trophy in England ahead, there’s much work to do to maintain this position, which would grant them a direct go in the World Cup 2019 in England.
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