Pakistan’s absence: who will be impacted?

This time around IPL will defiantly miss the action coming from across the India’s western borders, which also brought with them the support of millions of Pakistanis for teams like KKR. IPL was a huge hit in Pakistan, I guess maximum interest among the foreign nations, mostly because of all big players of Pakistan playing along with the popularity of Sharukh and Zinta in urdu speaking country.

The biggest sufferer of this absence will be KKR, who had four players coming from Pakistan. I consider Umar Gul as one of the best T20 bowlers, as he has the ability to bowl the Yorkers consistently and for that I believe he will be a big miss from the KKR squad. Umar Gul’s last year performance might not have been able to match the might he showed at world T20 2007 in SA, and since IPL 2.0 is held in SA I think Umar could have been a great asset for KKR.
Salman Butt was another big player on KKR payrolls. Salman again did not contribute significantly during IPL1.0 but still his impact at the top of the order can not denied. At international level this guy has a knack of performing well against India, but I am not sure how does that transform when he plays for an Indian team. Salman might not be a big miss because of prolonged availability of Chris Gayle and McCullum.

Shoib Akhtar was another big signing of KKR from Pakistan, and he made some impact during his 4 match stint at IPL 1.0. But I believe apart from cricketing prowess Shoib was one of the biggest factors of Pakistan’s support for KKR. Hafeez came to IPL with a badge of a big hitter, but ended up as an extra baggage, and might not be missed at all in the presence of other big hitter in the ranks of KKR.

So KKR will miss the firepower on the seam bowling department and will also loose their big fan base in Pakistan, still I am not sure if that will also impact their fan base in Bangladesh.
The other team, which will miss Pakistanis a lot is the current IPL champion Rajasthan Royals. They had three Pakistanis on their payrolls and Sohail Tanvir’s contributions to their campaign can not be debated. In absence of Tanvir their bowling attack will be led of Morkel and Patel as Shane Watson, another big find of IPL 1.0 will also be missing from action. They will have to rely on the new (publicized) sensation Kamran Khan.

Rajsthan will also miss their wicket Keeper batsman Kamran Akmal and now they have rely on local talent to fill that gap. Also their middle order might miss the stability that could have been provided by Younis Khan. My take is that from the pure cricketing perspective RR might turn out to be the biggest losers.

Delhi comes next with two Pakistanis in its squad, but both Shoib Malik and Asif turned out to be the over heads with their limited contributions. Malik was a big flop as an alrounder and Asif was also not able to match the firepower of McGrawth, Mahroof and Yo Mahesh. Now with Ashish Nehra also coming back to his home team, Delhi will not miss the Pakistani duo at all.

Bangalore and Hyderabad had one player each from Pakistan with them last time, but both Misbah and Shahid afridi were not able to justify the high price tags they came with. Even though Misbah was a personal choice of Malya, he failed and was not able to match the level of so called test players in the team. The biggest failure of star studded Deccan Chargers team undeniably was the Man of the series of world T20 2007. Shahid Afridi failed miserably both with bat and ball. With their pathetic performances the tow bottom teams might be feeling a bit light after doing away with the excess baggage.

Mumbai Indian, CSK and Kings XI were the teams with no Pakistanis and obviously have no impact coming from the stand off between India and Pakistan.