Pakistan Cricket Performance chart (30 December 1998)

30 December 1998

Pakistan Cricket Performance chart

By Shoaib Ahmed

Pakistan suffered a series of setbacks during the year in cricket, hockey and even squash which made us proud in the past. The only silver lining was upgradation in tennis and a surprise success in snooker.

The following figures depict the Cricket scene:

In cricket the prominent position attained by the country in the course of time was sadly forsaken while the Australians who had not won a single Test in Pakistan for the last 39 years won the series (1-0). More humiliation was heaped by Zimbabwe which won the first series away from home at our expense at the close of the year.

The following figures depict our showing during the period in the game both in terms of Test matches and One-day Internationals:

Pakistan played 38 matches over a period of nearly twelve months, 12 were won and 14 were lost to return a moderate average of 46.15. The 1998 rankings table is headed by Hansie Cronje's South African side, out of 22 matches, 17 were won and just 5 were lost to return a healthy percentage of 77.27. The second placed team in the season was former world champion West Indies with 6 wins from 8 matches for a success % of 75.00. The bat dominated the ball throughout the 1998 calendar year. The season's batting averages were topped by Saeed Anwar who finished at the head of the table with 831 runs scored at 41.55 per innings. He scored one hundred and seven fifties. The player who dominated the bowling scene, however was off-spinner Saqlain Mushtaq who had a haul of 34 wickets @ 16.41) from 14 matches. He bowled 125 overs and 4 of them were maidens.

Source :: Dawn (https://dawn.com/)