Pakistan cricket never had it so bad

Pity when one thinks of what has happened to Pakistan cricket. Their cricket has never ever before been in such a crisis. How they will extricate their cricket from this quagmire would be interesting to watch.

From being whitewashed by Australia in the Test series and the five one-dayers, skipper of the limited-over team Sahid Afridi goes and bites the ball and earns himself a suspension to add insult to injury.

Then with the unsettled conditions in Pakistan no cricket could be played there. Even their home games have to be played at neutral venues because teams fear to tour there after the life threatening attack on the Sri Lanka team when they toured there.

Then further insults were heaped on them when none of their cricketers were considered worthy of being purchased to play in the Indian Premier League Twenty20 tourney which is to be played in March/April.

Captaincy problems

Before the team left for Australia there were captaincy problems with Younis Khan refusing to accept the captaincy owing to lack of batting form and the Pakistan selectors had no option but to make Mohammed Younus as captain.

The team fared no better under Younus as the results will show in the Tests against Australia where they were crushed 3- nil. Then under Afridi their limited over captain things went from bad to worse when they lost the one-day series five-nil.

The ignominy of being whitewashed in Tests and one-dayers would not have happened to their cricket from the time they took to it. It sure would have been insulting and embarrassing not only to their present cricketers, but also their past champions and the administrators.

True that a team can’t be winning all the time. But when a team loses, it must put up a fight, stretch the opponents and lose gracefully. The present set of cricketers seemed to lack the fighting spirit, and surrendered meekly without getting the Aussies to work hard for victory.

Chief selector resigns

The shame heaped on everything that stands for their cricket was too much for chief selector Iqbal Qasim to take. He was prompt in tendering in his resignation. Qasim headed a seven-member selection committee and according to him picked the best possible teams for the Tests and one-day series. But that the cricketers did not perform has hurt the fans, and so his desire to quit.

The consensus is that Qasim should not have resigned. It must be accepted that he and his team of selectors did the best they could. They are not the ones who took the field. So Qasim should have a change of heart and we hope the administrators would bat for him.

Pakistan where cricket is also religion, saw the disappointed cricket fans in Hyderabad stage a symbolic funeral for Pakistan cricket. Pakistan’s cricket chief Ijaz Butt too, has had to cop a lot of criticism.

But Butt has played the correct stroke by appointing a six-member committee to evaluate the defeats ‘down under’. Chief Operating Officer of Pakistan cricket Wasim Bari will head that committee.

Other members

PCB governing board member Wazir Ali Khojs, Haroon Rashid a former player, Zakir Khan, PCB Director and former team manager Yawar Saeed and PCB Legal Adviser Taffazul Rizvi will be other members in that team.

Watching the Pakistan cricketers fronting up to the Aussies in both forms of the game it was apparent that their fielding was putrid. The fielders seemed to be butter-fingered when it came to taking catches. They did not seem to be aware of that time honoured axiom that ‘catches win matches’.

According to reports, believe it or not, the Pakistanis dropped about 30 catches on their tours of New Zealand and Australia which is unacceptable considering that they were playing in the big league. Even their running between the wickets was a disgrace.

Had the Pakistanis watched the Aussies performing in these two aspects they could have learnt and become better fielders and understood what good running between wickets are all about.

Former temperamental fast bowler Safraz Nawaz who has a knack of getting into controversy and former leg-spinning wizard Abdul Qadir have joined in the chorus of calling for the chopping of the top if the game is to improve.

Afridi a shame on the game

Sahid Afridi, captain of the Pakistan limited over-team, is a disgrace, not only to the team, the administration but also for all that the game of cricket stands for.

For no acceptable reason, he bit the ball and Match Referee Ranjan Madugalle who is a no nonsence man handed him a two-match Twenty20 ban. Madugalle would not have been faulted had he been more severe on the player. But the rules did not allow him to do that.

Being the captain of the team. Afridi should have known to act better and be an example to his team and the public watching and not show that he has a hunger for leather by biting the ball.

However a good player he would be, he is of absolutely no use to the game if he does not know how to behave and play the game according to the rules. He was a poor example to the youngsters watching what he did.

A further ban

The Pakistan Cricket Board will do well to deal with Afridi separately and in addition to the ban imposed by Madugalle, slap a further ban and we recommend a fine as punishment, so that it will serve as deterrent to Afridi and all others and show him that no player however brilliant, is not indispensable and larger than the game.

Afridi may be the holder of the fastest century made against Sri Lanka in the triangular tournament held in Kenya in 37 balls, which also featured South Africa in 1996. I was there and enjoyed Afridi’s batting as a 16-year old. But since, his behaviour has not been what it should be. Once he attempted to assault a spectator in South Africa and copped a ban of four one-day matches. He did not seem to learn from that and was banned for a Test and two one-day internationals for deliberately damaging the pitch in the Second Test at Faisalabad in 2005 against England.

If this is what the game has taught him, then the game will certainly be better off without him.