Re: Breaking News....Shoaib Malik Gets Pakistan Captaincy according to "The Nation"
Pakistan cricket team relies on 3 world class batsmen (Yousuf, Inzamam, and Younis) and 3 good bowlers (S Akhtar, Kaneria and Asif). I believe that once mediocre player like Shoaib Malik is appointed as Captain, players with world class performance may soon stop playing for Pakistan or stop performing to their potential (especially Yousuf, Inzamam, Younis and Shoaib Akhter).
Other players would also get messages that performance does not matter. Any player with performance better then Pakistan captain would expect to get selected before Captain and if not, that player would know that performance is not criteria for selection; it is Shafarish, like/dislike or nepotism.
Hence, players would give up on making their performance better. Even those that are not in the team, they would stop working hard on cricket with belief that performance could not find them a place in team. They would be looking for Shafarish and if they could not find one, they would just give up.
Just try to answer, why Hasan Raza, Faisal Iqbal, Taufeeq Umar, Yasir Hameed, Imran Farhat, Asim Kamal, Salman Butt and many others, much better batsmen then Shoaib Malik, with much better performance in first class cricket, some even in test and ODI, do not even have place in test team, but Shoaib Malik has, why?
It is obvious that when a person plays under a Captain with mediocre performance, overall performance suffers. Players start believing that performance is secondary thing to get respect, get included in team, or keep place in the team. Thus, they stop working hard on training, resulting in their lower performance and thus decline in Cricket standard country wise.
For instance, players like Mohammad Yousuf must have earned enough (in money and recognition) and would not be playing for money or recognition. Thus he would be playing for country. But when seeing that country don’t care about performance and rewards players with sub performance (even make a player Captain that cannot even justify to be in team on performance), obviously he would either stop playing or would stop worrying about performance.
Just imagine difference in test performance of both players:
Yousuf made 6553 runs in 126 test innings at average of 56.00, making 23 centuries and 27 fifties.
Shoaib Malik made 941 runs in 29 test innings at average of 37.64, making 1 century and 5 fifties.
ODI performance:
Yousuf made 7861 runs in 232 matches at average of 41.81 (SR of 74.2), making 12 centuries and 52 fifties.
Shoaib Malik made 3524 runs in 137 matches at average of 33.56 (SR of 77.16), making 5 century and 21 fifties.
Inzamam performance was as good as Yousuf. So, it was OK for Yousuf to perform while Inzamam was Captain.
Now, what is the incentive for Yousuf or any other player, to perform, especially those that are better or comparable performance that of Shoaib Malik, to work hard on their training and perform?
Note: Yousuf was Vice Captain with comparable performance to Inzamam in Pakistan team (difference was that Inzamam was senior). Then his performance deteriorated and Younis Khan Performance in test overtook Yousuf performance, resulting in management sacking Yousuf as Vice Captain and making Younis Khan Vice Captain. [This happened even though Yousuf performance in ODI was far better then Younis, actually it was better performance then even Inzamam]
Anyhow, Yousuf had bumper 2006 session in test cricket and over took not only Younis Khan test performance, but also Inzamam test performance.
Anyhow, I am giving up. If that is what Pakistan deserves and people wants, a sub standard Captain. good luck. :). For some, only time would tell if such decision could pay or not.
