Sohail Tanvir: “Wahab chipped in with some excellent performances, especially in the death overs where he was superb”

Image courtesy of: ESPNcricinfo

Pakistan left-arm seamer Sohail Tanvir admitted that fellow left-armer Wahab Riaz really impressed him with his performance at the World Cup.

Wahab was initially not even in the list of 23 probables for the World Cup before he was included in the team’s squad for the tournament.

Wahab featured in eight matches and took 11 wickets at an average of 36.36.

Tanvir believes it was a good decision on the selectors’ part to include Wahab in the World Cup squad as he felt Pakistan’s bowling attack was lacking experience.

“What Pakistan lacked in the bowling line-up when the initial 17 players were named for the series against England was the strength of experience and I am glad that the selectors saw the light to bring in Wahab for the final 15 for the World Cup squad,” Tanvir wrote in his blog for PakPassion.

“Wahab chipped in with some excellent performances, especially in the death overs where he was superb. This sort of ability was missing during Pakistan’s ODI series against Australia and England and Wahab covered that deficiency with extreme ease. He performed very well, especially with the older ball and to me that is because of the improvements he has made to his bowling in the last year or so.

“He only bowls away-swing to right-handers because of his wrist position and that was a problem for him as previously he was only bowling over the stumps which made it difficult to get wickets. Now that he has changed to bowling from round the stumps at over 140kph, there is a definite improvement in his bowling in terms of getting wickets.

“When he targets the stumps with the ball angling in first and then straightening at the last moment, its near-impossible to play him. This sort of bowling is tough for regular batsmen to face so just imagine how tail-enders must feel when facing Wahab.”

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