Clueless Pakistan Team vs. Professional Aussies

Australian team, already handicapped by injuries and demoralizing ban on Darren Lehman, woke up with the bad news that Shane Warne is tested positive for the drugs test and would be heading back home, seemed to have no chance to win this crucial game. The fact that they were to face world’s best bowling attack must have been a ray of hope in the hearts of cricket crazy fans of Pakistan, but what happened was diametrically opposite to this and Aussies exhibited a character that was unmatched by the Pakistani team.

The story of the day was the shocking news that Shane Warne failed drugs test and that he is on his way home, more shocking to me was the fact that ICC had to do nothing with it. It is shame that a great cricketer wont be part of the world cup he sure was one of the main attractions of the world cup, he certainly will be missed by Aussies and Warne fans in the world. I can not understand why would Shane Warne use such drugs in first place, he is a spinner and doesn’t have to have endurance that a pacer like Glen McGrath or Shoaib Akhtar need.

The news of Shane Warne’s unceremonious exit from the Worldcup must have been received by Pakistani camp with a big sigh of relief as his best record is against Pakistan.

Few weeks ago PCB promised to pay 5m rupees (nearly 100,000 USD) to every member of the 15-man squad if they repeat the 1992 success of Imran Khan’s team in Australia. “It is basically an incentive program designed to provide motivation to players," said PCB spokesman Samiul Hasan. In my opinion this is the tip of an iceberg and the real problem is being masked. I am unable understand why the most experienced team in the world need financial incentives to motivate them? I always thought that the motivation that comes from within lasts forever and external incentives based motivations are short lived. Watching Pakistani team humbled by the great Australian team it is very obvious that even these incentives were unable to motivate them. Samiul Hasan told that the PCB chairman believes that the players deserve such cash rewards if they can win a title that is so dear to the cricket-loving people of Pakistan. To me this means that the team should win the cup because this huge sum of money can be all theirs as oppose to winning it for their pride. I don’t see West Indian team promised any riches like this and still look what they did to mighty South Africa. Moreover 100,000 USD is not a huge money and some one can (I’m just playing devil’s advocate) promise 200,000 USD to a player (who apparently is only motivated by money) for playing bad and throwing the game, Then what ?

I think it was the right decision to field first after winning the toss and that expierenced Akram was almost unplayable by the Aussies. A lot of my friends disagreed with my view that Akram should not have been in the team and I think his first spell proved me wrong and it looks like Akram is still capable of competitive cricket. My dear friend Manoj Singh spent countless hours arguing with me about the fact that my point of view was wrong about Akram and I feel no shame in accepting that I erred when I thought that an aging and diabetic Akram would be a burden on the Pakistani team.

Pakistan had huge edge when they sent 4 of the Australian batsmen back to the pavilion at the meager total of 89 in the16th over and then things started to go south for Pakistan. Instead of keeping the pressure on Aussies, Waqar opted to be defensive and Ricky Ponting with Andrew Symonds made sure that they were never defensive in their approach. It is very important to understand that Ricky Ponting was the chief architect of the Australian attack as he never let Pakistani bowler get on his nerves while on the other end Akram was destroying top order Aussie batsmen. Andrew Symonds joined him in the 16th over and he made Pakistani bowling look very easy to play. Aussies managed to keep the run rate of almost 6 per over without needing to slog. Ponting and Symonds didn’t play a single slog shot and all the shots were immaculately placed and very well timed which frustrated Pakistani team beyond imagination. Andrew Symonds’ innings was a great treat to watch and I can easily rate it as one of the innings to remember for a long time. He scored 143 in 125 balls and in recent past if such statistics appeared in front of some one’s name the idea used to be that there were huge shots balls flying out of the stadium but nothing of that sort happened. All strokes played were proper textbook kind of shots. Hats off to such a brilliant innings by Andrew Symonds who has cemented his position in the team, which can afford to drop Steve Waugh and still be competitive.

Pakistani bowling and fielding was very undisciplined they conceded 21 runs in no balls and wide balls, almost 3 and a half overs. There were many times when I realized that there was almost no plan for the match, fielding was sub standards Aussies were taking singles at will and Pakistani fielders were letting them take 2s when there should have been only a single. Pakistan ought to address the issue of fielding on the emergency bases. Moreover there must be some changes in the team not playing Saqlain Mushtaq was a big mistake, Shahid Afridi is a make shift kind of a bowler and can not be thought to fill the void created by the absence of Saqlain.

It was never easy to chase 310 runs against the quality Aussies’ bowling attack. The way that could have been done was to send some one to open the innings who could provide stability while scoring 1s and 2s. That could have been Inzi or someone else but they had no chance to chase such a mammoth total with a sloger like Afridi and Taufeeq Umar, the only prominent thing about him were his huge eyebrows. Taufeeq Umar had absolutely no clue what was happening and was like a dear caught in the headlights of a car. McGrath was almost certainly enjoying and tricking with him the man did a great favor to Pakistan by getting out to a briskly rising delivery from Bret Lee. I’m of the idea that one down position belongs to the best batsman in the team that certainly is not Saleem Elahi, even though he played ok. At the end some blood was pumped into the dying Pakistani team when Rashid Latif and Akram were batting, but game was lost much earlier when Waqar opted to not attack in the field and thus putting huge pressure on an already brittle and unreliable Pakistani batting line.

In his last over Waqar opted to throw 2 beamers at Andrew Symonds and was rightly asked to not continue his bowling by English umpire David Shepard. I think the first beamer was a genuine mistake and it slipped out of his hand, but the second one was pre-schemed and was traveling at a ferocious speed. In my opinion Pakistani captain should be severely reprimanded by the ICC, and possibly by PCB too, for such an unnecessary un-sportsman like conduct. Waqar was rightly booed at by the 26000 crowed. This said I don’t understand why Rashid Latif did not run-out Andrew Symonds who was busy in telling Waqar what he thought about his mother. It was a no-ball call and not a dead ball call.

Pakistan’s next big game is against England, who will be hungry to win as they have already decided to not participate in their game against Zimbabwe and thus will handover 4 crucial points to them. Before this game they are playing Zambia and I think they should try to give Saeed Anwar match practice, though I doubt if he will click, and let Saqlain Mushtaq play his role in Pakistan’s quest for the Worldcup.

Few words about the Canada and Bangladesh game. My friend Manoj thinks that it was a wastage of power and money to stage such a game under the flood lights. All those who think that decision of handing Bangladesh test cap was premature, like your’s truly, were proven right one more time. The future for Banladesh looks very bleak as their rest of the games are against Kenya, RSA, Sri Lanka, Windies and black caps I seriously doubt they will be able to break their record breaking losing streak of 27 games in a row. In sporting world their talents and losing records are only matched by the Cincinnati Bengals, ironically their symbol is tiger too. The most comical moment was the first ball that Bangladeshi pacer Manjurl Islam bowled to Canadian opener Maraj and it was played towards extra covers a Bangladeshi fielder (I could not catch his name) threw the ball in most ridicules manner that I have ever seen and then ran himself to pick the ball again and threw it one more time, which eventually reached to the wicket keeper.