Coups in cricket
by Tunku Varadarajan who writes a column on cricket for CNNSI.com.
Pressure in Pakistan; Sri Lanka ousts Australia
Posted: Friday October 15, 1999 03:43 PM
There have been two coups this month, by
my reckoning. There was the one in
Pakistan, when a big, bad General -- of the
sort which that country throws up as
effortlessly as it now does fast bowlers --
produced a bit of political reverse-swing and
rocked the elected Government out of power. And then there was the one in
Sri Lanka, when the strutting Australians were sent packing by Sanath
Jayasuriya's rejuvenated band of cricketers. It may have rained a lot during
the Test series, but oh, what a deeply satisfying result that was for the more
neutral cricket fan!
On to Pakistan: I'd like to think that the impact of General Musharraf's coup
on Pakistani cricket would be minimal. After all, what has martial law in
common with off-spin and cover drives? But the history of the game in
Pakistan is littered with examples of political interference, with selectors and
captains sometimes sacked by Presidents and Prime Ministers, not to
mention the campaigns of accusation and vilification that are a seemingly
permanent part of that country's cricket.
It would be a terrible shame for the game of cricket, if politics in some ugly
form, were to trample upon the turf just as Wasim Akram and his squad are
preparing for their foray to Australia later this year.
Wasim is now back at the helm, exonerated of all those oh-so-tedious
match-throwing allegations, and leads a side that seems to be putting behind
it, the trauma of its World Cup Final hiding at the hands of none other than
the Aussies.
If left well alone, he will take his team into what will surely be one of the
raciest Test series in a long time, one in which the Aussies will be quite
out-gunned in the bowling department.
And what of the Australians? Seldom has their bowling looked so
threadbare.
Glenn McGrath will of course torment the Pakistanis, but the kind of bouncy,
fast tracks that he so revels in, will also cause a collective burst of
mouth-watering in the Pakistani ranks.
This could be the series in which Shoaib Akhtar -- fitness permitting --
comes of age as an all-time great fast bowler. It's a pity, therefore, that the
two sides will only play three Tests, not five.
These are delicate times for Steve Waugh's side, whose "World Test
Champion" crown -- always worn a little unconvincingly -- looks ready for
the snatching.
Geoff Marsh, their doughty coach, has now moved on to other things and
[Steve] Waugh -- on whose captaincy my jury is still out -- must team up
afresh with Alan Border, the stop-gap replacement. These are two
hard-headed men, who'd rather be dead than on the losing side, but they're
much too similar in their mental make-up for there to be the sort of effective
cross-fertilization of ideas that comes with the best coach-captain combines.
But Australia's present problems stem not so much from strategy as from a
curious brittleness under pressure. And this is where Border's steel, and his
undoubted cussedness, could prove to so valuable. Australia's batting line-up,
which is high-class on paper, wilts far too often for a side that sees itself as
"great", and Mark Waugh's recent run-drought has hit his captain [and twin]
hard.
The bowling, too, is deeply unsatisfactory, and any side that plays Colin
Miller for quite so many Tests cannot have our highest regard.
Australia has to blood a new fast bowler against Pakistan: it is not
cost-effective, in cricketing terms, for McGrath to shoulder the entire
burden, especially as Warne will be bowling to batsmen who are quite
familiar in dealing with spin bowling.