Deep Backward Point

In March, when this blog was a pretty, young thing, I wrote a short article titled “Pakistan’s Weakest Link”:

Shehzad has a career ODI average of 27.50. Barring his one (exceptional) century, his average is 20.0 for his remaining innings. But he’s young, he’s only played 13 matches. Hafeez, on the other hand, has an average of 22.22 after 68 matches. That is untenable.

Pakistan’s run of opening partnerships over the year until that article was:

26, 8, 12, 6, 82, 7, 31*, 2, 43, 20, 14, 11, 28, 16, 5

Since then, Hafeez has been part of two century , one double century and another three fifty partnerships. Hafeez in 2011 has been a revelation, scoring over 1000 runs at an average of 37. All his career 100s came this year, as did almost half his runs. And that’s before we get to his bowling. 32 wickets at 25 runs a piece this year, including his new role opening the attack. So I take back my words. Hafeez is tenable. Not just tenable, he’s necessary. ∞ And to the inevitable griefer who comes by to say “his runs/wickets came against Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, West Indies”, let me tell you what a math teacher once told me.

See. <grand pause> Silly answers are infinite.

Previously on Deep Backward Point:

• Pakistan’s Weakest Link