Pakistan cricket: The way ahead
From Asif Iqbal
Former Pakistan and Kent cricket captain
LONDON: As Pakistan cricket awakes from the nightmare of its recently concluded World Cup campaign, groping its way forward, the first thing that perhaps has to be stopped to bring an element of sanity to the rebuilding process is for the meaningless calls for players to retire to cease.
Players do not select themselves either into the touring squad or the playing side; there is a selection committee that does this job and if it thinks that a player is not good enough to merit selection, it is not bound by any consideration to select him.
There is no law anywhere that says that just because a player has not retired and is available for selection, he has to be selected. The calls to retire are therefore either very stupid or politically motivated – perhaps the latter – and at this juncture, given the happenings of the last few weeks, amount to a public admission of failure on the part of the players which no one has a right to insist on.
The selection committee is free to do its job in any manner it pleases and should proceed on that basis. If the argument is that political and media pressures continue to be exercised for those who do not announce their retirements, well then, that is the system as it works not only in Pakistan but in most other places too. If the selection committee cannot take the heat, it should get out of the kitchen.
The foremost task before Pakistan’s cricket authorities is to appoint a new captain to take Pakistan into what hopefully would be a new era. No one is more suited for this task than Wasim Akram. In a society in which respect for authority comes only on a personal basis, he by his seniority and outstanding cricketing record commands respect.
He has done it all on the field and does not have anything further to prove and everyone knows that. He is perhaps also the only person who has an outside chance of exercising some sort of control over Shoaib, and that will be one of the cornerstones on which the new team has to be built.
The other candidate for the post, Moin Khan, has the advantage of being younger, and thus perhaps able to continue for longer in the job than Wasim if required. However, his place in the side is less certain than Wasim’s and in any case, this is a arrangement which should not be carried forward for beyond a year. For one thing, this is the normal shelf life for a Pakistani captain any way, and for another, any prolongation of it would not serve the purpose of ushering in a new order which seems to be therequirement of the day.
Purely from the cricketing point of view, what Pakistan needs on a top priority basis is a reliable opening pair and a number three batsman. Taufiq Umar can fill the slot of one opener and Saleem Elahi has been performing well enough to be persevered with and given a fair run. Perhaps Youhana will have to be persuaded to bat at number three. This combination will have to be given time to settle down.
I feel that frequent chopping and changing has been one of our main problems and has not helped in the all important task of building a combination in which everyone knows his place and what is expected of him. I also feel that Imran Nazir should be brought back into the side, particularly for one-day matches. His fielding also makes a valuable contribution to the team effort, raising the performance in a department which is not Pakistan’s forte.
With the frequent changes in the batting line up, I would also think that frequent changes in the the managerial position are not helpful. The concept of sacking the manager after every poor performance is only a political ploy and these are not helpful by any means. Tinkering with cosmetics like this shifts the focus from the real problems and is pooradministration.
An effort to make pitches which allow the ball to behave differently from the standard pitches in the subcontinent is also extremely important, even if initially it results in a few defeats for Pakistan. Different venues may be selected for different type of wickets, as is the case in Australia where Sydney provides a spinning wicket while Perth always has a fast bouncy track.
If foreign expertise has to employed to achieve this, I would suggest that that would be a much more useful way of spending money than hiring coaches from abroad for brief periods. Some may say that this may nullify home advantage but over a period of time it is bound to pay dividends.
In any case, Pakistan has lost home series to Zimbabwe and England in the recent past, so the home advantage isnot really working. On the vexed issue of a coach, I intend to spell out my thoughts in my next column; suffice it to say here that the concept should be seriously examined from a view to ascertaining whether such a position is necessary.
It does not appear to have served any very great purpose in the past and perhaps it would not be out of place to suggest that the overall impact of coaches has been neutral at best and quite oftennegative. Emphasis has to be given on proper behaviour both on the field of play and off it.
There have been innumerable instances in the World Cup when standards of behaviour have fallen well below the required mark with both the captain and the vice-captain being guilty. The action which the Board has had to take against Afridi on the basis of an ICC complaint confirms this trend. In fact, the trend started with the Youhana affair last year when the Board, the manager and the captain all came out with different stories and versions.
There should be an institutionalised way of handling these problems and it should not just be up to the Board Chairman to resolve such issues with the stamp of individualauthority. I also feel that the practise of sending a platoon of supporting staff when Pakistan is on tour is entirely counter-productive. It just adds to the confusion, increases problems of man management and must be hugely expensive when better results can be achieved by concentrating the efforts of these specialists in our academies and training camps.
On the World Cup campaign, most teams were accompanied by no more than about four officials, comprising managers, trainers, physios etc.; the Pakistani contingent of officials was reportedly more than twice that number. Looking at the reasons for the World Cup debacle, one would perhaps identify the failure of Shoaib Akhtar as one of the major factors responsible for it.
I would think that a fair amount of work has to be done with him and it has to be drilled into him that speed alone will never deliver the goods at this level. For me the most outstanding bowler on display in this World Cup has been Shane Bond who in terms of speed is marginally slower than Lee or Shoaib but is a superb bowler. His control is immaculate, he gets prodigious movement both in the air and off the pitch and has the great virtue of consistency. These are the virtues that have to be emphasised on Shoaib.
While on the subject of Shoaib, I feel it has to be said that it is, in my view, absolutely imperative that all players should be treated equally and no one should be given the impression that he has special status as a potential match winner. This is particularly necessary in a team like Pakistan, where individual tensions do exist.
There can be few things more disruptive to team unity than the feeling that everybody in the squad is not equal. The prime example of how everyone in a squad should be treated is Australia’s where there was no hesitation in taking out a star player like Shane Warne and sending him home on the morning of Australia’s first World Cup game.
By contrast, our Board gives the impression that it has no alternatives. Shoaib’s talent cannot be easily duplicated but it is better to have eleven average players all pulling in the same direction rather than a few superstars all going their own way.
This will involve the introduction of a new culture and just as the Board’s first priority during the past four years was to produce a squad for the World Cup, it would be well advised to make its first priority for the next four years the introduction of this new culture, even if it is amounts to running cricket on a basis that is different from the one on which the rest of the country functions.
