Cricket-Butt unhappy with decisions, bowling and fielding

Pakistan vice captain Salman Butt said poor umpiring decisions along with fielding lapses and lax bowling had led to his team's poor performance in the test series against South Africa.Pakistan are 305 runs behind after the third day and, batting last, face a tough task to save the second test after losing the first in Karachi by 160 runs."There have been some decisions where we have been unlucky like, I think, myself in the second innings of the Karachi test,' Butt told reporters on Wednesday."The third umpire gave me out when it was a bounce catch and Mohammad Yousuf yesterday I don't think he was out. When you lose your premier batsman like that, one decision can make a lot of difference to the team," he said.Yousuf, making a comeback to the Pakistan team, was given out leg before to Dale Steyn after scoring 25 runs and television replays showed the ball had hit him high on his knee roll.Butt also felt the spinners had not bowled well."The wickets were prepared for the spinners but they didn't get the South African batsmen out for low scores. We also had some fielding lapses. We have made mistakes and we accept that and we have to improve."Butt, who was made vice-captain after the World Cup, gave some credit to the visiting batsmen for playing spin well. "I don't want to take anything away from them. But our bowlers didn't bowl to their potential."The opener who scored 40 in Pakistan's total of 206 blamed the transition from one-day and Twenty20 cricket for the team's struggle."It's been a long layoff for us from test cricket and we have not played well."

Pakistan Cricket Board delaying decision of Shoaib case?

Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) disciplinary committee last week completed hearing of Shoaib Akhtar’s misconduct case but is yet to announce its findings and the matter is prolonged unnecessarily creating speculations.The team manager Talat Ali banned him for five matches after his preliminary enquiry in South Africa ahead of the recently-concluded ICC World Twenty20 Cup which seemed that he had served his ban for not playing Twenty20 matches and had not been selected for two Test matches which is equal to four ODIs as per the ICC playing conditions.The lawyers of Shoaib Akhtar have been claiming the same that he has served the punishment and they have demanded that Shoaib should be included in the national squad or give an explanation that why he is not included in the team but they are yet to receive any response from the PCB. The PCB disciplinary committee comprising COO Shafqat Naghmi, DCO Zakir Khan and Director HR Nadeem Akram continued their mutual discussions to review Shoaib’s case but could not reach a conclusion. They are supposed to announce their decision today (Thursday).They seemed to have been facing a problem of any code at the domestic level to deal with such issues.

The ICC playing conditions do have a code of conduct to deal with the breaches of different levels but the incident is the internal affair of the PCB so they can’t implement the ICC code and have to stick with their own code as they have done earlier while dealing with the doping case involving Shoaib Akhtar and M Asif. Besides Shoaib-Asif spat, the committee is considering some other breaches by Shoaib Akhtar including media briefing without prior permission from the PCB. It is very likely that Shoaib could face some fine or ban under any other charges. But the cricket lovers are of the view that Shoaib should be included in the national team for the ODI series to strengthen the fast bowling department of the team. Meanwhile, Shoaib Akhtar has vowed to give his best to help Pakistan beat South Africa in the ODI series if given a chance. The committee should dispose of the issue as soon as possible to end the rumours.