'Don't make me the scapegoat' - Shoaib

Just what I said below (in "Wasim slams ICC ...."). Its easy to come up with excuses/accusations. I am not the biggest Shoaib Akhtar fan but he should get credit where he deserves. If we rely on him so much so that we cant afford to see him out of action then that shows how valuable he is for the Pakistan team. Its a shame we cant produce quality bowlers capable of replacing the "unfit" ones, but its not Shoaib's fault.

Shoaib went on: "I am disappointed with my fitness, but not with my form. I think I bowled very well in the first two Tests and twice we had Australia on the ropes on 5 for 78 and 5 for 170, but there is no support for me at the other end and the batting also failed to click constantly in the series."

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I can't agree more. The batsmen just never scored enough runs. And I give credit to Shoaib for bowling really well so as to get the Aussies in trouble on so many occasions. Honestly when the series started I was thinking about something along the line of the Sharjah debacle. But thanks to Shoaib (and spells from Sami/Kaneria) we were much more respectable/threatening at times, although we weren't able to do that persistently.

I still think Pakistan's batting was much better than the way it came out in the Test series. But its showing some sparks in the One Day series.