for the first time in the last tenish years, I’ve heard someone from the Pak camp (coach Woolmer) actually say that the Pak team is aiming to be the best team in the world (this is not related to the latest story of Pak wanting to beat Aus - he said this way before that). for fans of many teams i.e. Saffies, Kiwis, this would be regular, run of the mill lip service. but for a Pak fan such as myself this is a declaration of monumental importance. during the 90s ie the decade where we were blessed with an unbelievable collection of individual talents, I yearned for some, any team official to say (even if he didn’t mean it) that the team was gunning to be the best in the world. but it never came.
instead all we got were generous sprinklings of brilliant individual performances here and there which were enough to get us a reputation as one of the top teams in the world but never got us recognized as THE top team in the world. I don’t and never did understand why a professional team/sportsman would want to play a game without having the desire and drive to be the absolute best in the world bar none. whether you get there or not is irrelevant but not having the desire to get there is just criminal for a professional sportsman. anyway, I guess better late than never.
so, the moral of the story is that Bob Woolmer is a great coach. everything he does and says is just so commonsense. this is not to say that he has a magic wand or that I expect the Pak team to win the Holland cup and the Champions trophy. all I’m hoping to see is the Pak team going on the field with some solid planning and giving their best regardless of the circumstances. hopefully gone are the days when the Pak team wandered aimlessly from tournament to tournament hoping to just wing it on the day courtesy of a superlative individual performance or two.
if only he’d coached our team in the 90s, we could’ve been the best in the world. I hope he runs for the PM office after his tenure with the Pak team. I’ll definitely vote for him.
ps. does anyone know if Mohsin Khan going to do commentary in the upcoming tournaments. I can’t wait to listen to his expertise.
Pakistan team has lacked focus in the past and Woolmer will provide it. The respect his players are showing him are nothing less than what Imran used to command. I see a bright future ahead.
^ I hope to god you're right.
With all the turmoil in the PCB, who knows how long Woolmer will last. Hopefully somebody with a bit of sense takes over for Ramiz and gives Bob pleanty of time to prove himself.
Perhaps it is never said because they never felt the need to do so. Earlier and even now a lot of Pakistanis think Pakistan to be the best team. Partly because back in 92 we won the world cup and so we were theoretically the best team until the next world cup as we were the world champions. Then in 96 WC we were the favorites and apparently had the best team. In fact perhaps the best side ever to play for Pakistan in a world cup. Then in WC99 we lost to Australia in the final.
In between these world cups we would win against the top side, win against India more often then India won against us, plus the recognition as one of the top team and the belief in the cliché “cricket is by chance” enforced our mythical belief that we are the top team of the world. Match fixing issue did not help the situation either and we would blame bad results on match fixing. Continuing to believe that Pakistan is the best team but looses particular matches due to particular players fixing matches.
But to a certain extent with the introduction of the world ODI ranking and more importantly over the past few years Australia’s emergence as a formidable power in the world helped in realizing where Pakistan stood. The Aussies set standards and made the world number one spot undisputed. Winning to such effect that the cliché “Cricket is by chance” did not seem to apply to them. [It does but then Chance favors the prepared mind]
The WC2003 exit but perhaps even more important, the rise of Team India has given the Pakistanis an over due wake up call. But better late then never and it is indeed a refreshing sign that we see a realization that just having the ability to be THE top team in the world does not count but what counts is being “THE TOP TEAM”.