What’s Wrong with Pakistani Cricket

As with everything else in life, there is the big picture and there is the little picture. In the big picture cricket is only a microcosm of society; so answering the question what's wrong with Pakistani cricket would really amount to answering what's wrong with Pakistan itself. In the little picture one would look for the problems within the sphere of cricket itself.

Now some guys are big picture guys and some gals are little picture gals. And some who are big picture gals in the morning can be little picture guys at night. Today, I prefer to be a little picture guy. I don't want to talk about Pakistan's problems; it's too depressing and no one's listening anyway.

So the little picture it will have to be and here it is. But first I have to enter a disclaimer. Nobody has ever taken my cricketing acumen seriously ever since I declared my favorite cricketer to be Rizwanuzzaman. No amount of arguing that a favorite is not necessarily equivalent to best has made any difference; which I find a quite telling revelation of the paucity of logic. And I have had to spend an inordinate amount of time proving that Rizwanuzzaman is not related to me in some way; another telling revelation of how we pick our favorites. But let's stay away from the big picture stuff.

In my defense I can only narrate an incidence from very early childhood when I was reported missing from school only for it to be discovered that I had never left the bathroom. It was the last over before lunch when I was apprehended; I was still sitting on the can commentating, handing over now to Jamshed Marker and taking over again from Omar Kureishi - my all-time heroes. Mushtaq Mohammad was fourteen years old playing his first test and Hall was thundering in from the Stadium end. No there wasn't a test match on; it was just me and my obsession. So I can at least plead enthusiastic involvement.

Back to the little picture then. Notice the pattern; every once in a while Pakistan wins big and people get excited about the resurgence of Pakistani cricket. Most of the time though, it loses to utterly mediocre teams. And it loses far more often than it wins. So what's going on? Look folks, how likely are you to get a six when you roll a dice? You might roll two in a row but in the long run only one-sixth of the rolls are going to be sixes and people have known that for hundreds of years or at least since Bernoulli.

The Pakistan team doesn't play cricket; it rolls a dice (leaving aside the other more sinister rolls of the dice - this big picture stuff keeps intruding). So we'll start with Afridi and he'll knock the stuffing out of the other side in the first half hour; or Saqlain or some other new sensation like Shoaib Akhtar or Mohammad Sami would mow down the opponents in two overs. Once in a while it happens (remember Saeed Anwar in Chennai? O what a glorious sight it was); most of the time it does not. On average, about once in six as we would know if only we ask someone who does.

Cricket is played by individuals but it is a team sport. Playing it well and consistently means playing according to a plan and being able to adapt the plan as circumstances demand. When one is unable to, or does not want to, plan or think through situations, for whatever reason, one reduces it to a contest of individuals; we have eleven players - one of them is going to come off for us. Sometimes they do but good teams don't count on that. They rely on five or six solid and intelligent contributions that cumulatively add up to a good performance.

One can get a feel for this by thinking of players who had this sense of planning and adaptation. Imran Khan as captain and Miandad, to take two examples, who knew when to stall, when to concentrate on singles, when to open out, and when to nurse and protect a partner. What a treat it was to see the game as one of strategy and not just one of individual brilliance. What a contrast to see Aftab Gul with Pakistan poised to win and the guy goes out and wants to hit the first ball out of the ground. Anyone remember Aftab Gul and his crew cut?

Is anyone surprised that Pakistan's dominance in squash lasted so much longer than in cricket, squash truly being a contest between individuals. But it really wasn't Pakistan's dominance; it was Nawankilli's dominance - one supremely gifted genetic strain from one small village, and that too has run dry. But no big picture stuff, I promised.

Or does anyone wonder why small Sri Lanka with one-seventh the population and much less gifted players has nevertheless a better team? And Pakistan with arguably the eleven most talented players has such a poor record. Of course it doesn't help that in any one team five or six of them have been captains at one time or another. But the ability to plan, to think through situations, to defer to team objectives requires either an intuitive intelligence or a professionalism that comes with patient education. Intuitive intelligence is not non-existent but it is rare (imagine Miandad again or Mushtaq). Education, on the other hand, is a societal matter. Anyone know the literacy rate in Sri Lanka?

So Pakistan wants greatness on the back of hopes and prayers. I remember a hockey match that Pakistan lost to South Korea (could anyone even have imagined that twenty years ago?). When asked what they had been doing the night before the match, the South Koreans said they had been watching videos of Pakistan's games; the Pakistanis had spent the time in fervent and devout prayers. Now we have a foreign coach to do the thinking for us. Let’s see what happens.

Forgive me, what can I do with this big picture stuff. It is almost morning and I should call it quits before I become the odious pontificating big picture guy again. All I will say is that it is teatime on the final day and the rain is coming down. Over to you, Omar.