For years, Pakistan’s strength has been bowling. Its been known to attack through the bowling and manage to field good enough batting to ably support it. Its a team who has always been more confident and comfortable defending sub 250 targets rather than chasing down 300+ scores. That hasn’t happened without a method in it.
That method has been to unleash attacking and wicket taking bowlers to go for the kill while keep a few who can contain the batsmen. Right from the 1992 World Cup where Aamir Sohail and Ijaz Ahmed played the role of containing bowlers till recently, the method has been the same where Saeed Ajmal and Muhammad Hafeez have took up that role. It is only natural that Pakistan struggled whenever both or one out of them failed to contain the opposition.
With Ajmal and M Hafeez unavailable to bowl, it has exposed a big issue with Pakistan’s primary weapon. To add to misery, it has happened all of a sudden leaving no ready backups of them. In recent years, Pakistan has tried many options to fill that role but the results have been disappointing. Bilawal Bhatti, Anwar Ali, M Talha, Sohail Tanvir, Ehsan Adil, all of them were tried for those roles but failed to live up to the expectation. It is not unusual to see them struggling in Pakistan’s Test squad for the same reason – they have been, simply, inconsistent. Apart from Ehsan Adil in Pakistan’s World Cup squad, all the other bowlers – Irfan, Wahab Riaz, Sohail Khan, Afridi, Yasir Shah – are more of attacking bowlers than containing or “channel” bowlers.
Considering the desperate need to find a bowler to contain the batsmen and bowl line and length consistently rather tan going for wickets every ball, Rahat Ali doesn’t look that bad a selection, probably the best available option along with Imran Khan for that role. Imran Khan is pretty new to International Cricket and exposing him to the pressure of a World Cup might have proved fatal both for the team as well as his own career. On the other hand, Rahat has been the pace leader in Tests for quite some time now and have the temperament to bowl line and length for longer periods. Probably, this is exactly what Pakistan need and maybe the same that selectors and team management looked for when they decided to push him into the squad ahead of Sohail Tanvir, Bilawal Bhatti and Anwar Ali.
With the unavailability of Ajmal, M Hafeez, Junaid and Gul, and the disappointment of Bhatti, Tanvir, Talha, and Anwar Ali, Rahat Ali does not look a bad choice. Would it provide the required efficiency and consistency from him to stabilise the crumbling bowling unit? Nobody knows. But when it comes to gambling, Pakistan has picked the right ‘dark horse’, probably. How far this outside runner will go? Wait and see.