Introducing the First Edition of Dhobi Ghaat’s “Question & Answer Session” Thread
At this moment in time, I would like to take this opportunity and present to you, the “Question & Answer Session” thread, where three of the most prestigious and honorable members of this very forum will be bestowed with a wonderful opportunity to answer some of the most frequently-asked questions that have been hovering on the minds of many die-hard fanatics and regular watchers, combined. The actual amount of the questions will vary from one edition to the next, as they will range from those that are controversial to polemical and everything in-between.
In this edition, our three guests that have chosen to participate in this broad and active set of discussion are Ehsan Bhai, Saby Bhai and Faisal Bhai. Each of their answers below are color-coded (Legend key noted above) for your ease of convenience and the cushion of comfort for the user-friendliness aspect. You are more than welcome to answer any/all of the questions yourself as well, as we will try our best to engage in a healthier, friendlier and fruitful discussion throughout, as moments arise. On behalf of the GupShup community of Cricketnama, I would like to extend an envelope of gratitude and a show of mutual appreciation to these three individuals who took the time out from their hectic schedules and consummated the questionnaire.
Question #1) Do you foresee the impact of Jonty Rhodes as a short-term fielding specialist coach in a positive way in that it will help benefit the current state of Pakistan Cricket? How do you weigh in the positives/negatives of this issue? Is it worth throwing away a large briefcase of money to an individual who may or may not produce the “desired” results and live upto the expectations?
** Ehsan: I don’t think any effective gain can be achieved by hiring a fielding specialist on a short term basis. Our fielding is bad and needs long term coaching. The bad habits and lack of commitment int eh fielding is not something which can be fixed by a short term remedy.**
** Saby: Our fielding started to improve and was actually quite good in the initial days of Bob Woolmer but they turned worse and worse of late. I suspect Jonty Rhodes can improve our fielding standards drastically in a fortnight. Maybe he will teach some innovative fielding drills that he himself used to practice. But I am all in support for this gamble. Its not that PCB is a bankrupt organization. They have a good cashflow and if there is a chance that this exercise might improve our fielding standards then take this risk by all means.**
** Faisal: Large suitcases of money are not really the main issue here in my mind. There is way too much money in the game right now for the Board to be nickle-and-diming issues that are important to the national team. A short stint by a good coach can definitely make a difference if the training is structured properly and players approach the issue seriously. Issues with their techniques can be resolved quickly by an expert. However, the consistency in ground fielding comes with practice. It helps to have grounds that are lush green where players are not afraid of diving. Unfortunately thats not the case in Pakistan. The other problem I see is that its not clear what are Jonty’s credentials as a coach. He was a fantastic player and arguably the best fielder the game has seen in recent memory, but does that mean he can transfer his skills to other people? I am not sure. There is no direct relationship. Look at Woolmer, who was a fairly average first class player and turns out to be a great coach. Just because someone was a great player does not mean he will be a great coach as well. So its too early to make any claims on what Jonty can accomplish. My expectations are pretty low. But that is not solely because I don’t know what Jonty can do, but also because our players’ general state of unfitness and lack of application towards fielding.**
Question #** 2) How would you personally fix our opening-batting hardship and affliction? Ever since the combination of Anwar/Sohail has left the scene, the slot has rather appeared to be in shambles and from the looks of it, we only have a handful of specialists to choose from (or who have been selected to appear in the team since then). How would you rectify this topic of concern? Furthermore, if you were to be presented with an opportunity to retain a team of two people for a long-term basis, who would be your primary candidates?**
** Ehsan: Over the years we have enjoyed some very good opening partnerships right form Sadiq/Majid, Mudassar/Mohsin and than Sohail/Anwar. However currently it is the weakest link in our batting and Shoaib malik at best is a stop gap. I personally think that he will not be able to perform the opening role successfully in the seaming conditions which he will face in england. The cupboard is empty at the moment. We have to make do with what we got. Out of the current lot my primary candidates would be Farhat and Butt. Both have weaknesses, especially Butt and that’s where the coach and captain should give these youngsters advice. If Butt can eliminate that annoying shot outside the off stump he would become a world class opener.**
** Saby: I am a big supporter of Bubloo-Inzi combo but I cant understand their impatience when it comes to our openers. Salman Butt for all his faults is the only opener in Pakistan history who succeeded in his first international tour down under with some credit. He has flawed technique but who doesnt? He went on to have a great series against England but after three failures in ODIs he was benched and since then all went downhill for him. I thought Yasir Hameed/Salman butt was a good combo and should have been persisted with but oh well. Right now its Imran Farhat and Shoaib malik 's turn and if they fail, they will once again turn to the likes of Taufeeq Umar (I wish I dont see that day). Shoaib malik is a gutsy cricketer who will always give his best. I just wonder if his best is going to be good enough in English conditions or not.
Ideally on current form and talent I would like to see Salman Butt/Imran Farhat open the innings.**
** Faisal: We did try a bunch of youngsters in the last few years. Most of them bubbled up through their performances in domestic cricket. None of them could stake a permanent position in the national team. Its unfortunate. We have two options. Identify the players with the correct technique, coach them more and then plug them in the team and persist with them. Or go back to the drawing board and identify more talent. Salman Butt definitely showed signs of filling out the position. Too bad he ran into a mental block. Imrat Farhat is perhaps the luckiest player I know. Despite his $hitty technique, he was offered countless chances and that made his scoresheet look remarkably impressive in recent games. May be we should stick with him too, just because he is so damn lucky. Of the bygones, I liked Imran Nazir once upon a time. The kid had courage and could play some daring shots. Not sure what happened to him. I have a personal bias against having two lefty openers too. Its much bettter to have left-right combination, just so the opposing teams have one more thing to worry about. And no, Kamran Akmal is no solution. Neither is Afridi.**
Question #** 3) Ever since Shoaib Akhtar has temporarily left the scene, the phenomena that was widely known as “a nation that produces fast bowlers by the dozen every minute” was diminished to a much lesser degree and is now almost non-existant with the rejection of Mohammad Sami. Besides from the individual performances of Mohammad Asif and Danish Kaneria which, on more than one ocassion, has equaled match-winning presentations, is there any particular reason why are we not leaning towards continuity of fast-bowling? Is there any justification why are we failing to see the successor of Shoaib? Exactly why haven’t we made the major discovery yet? It seems like all Woolmer now has to do, apart from binding the team unity, is to give a few pointers (since we already have a long list of coaches in almost every department) and not anything else. Shouldn’t Woolmer/selectors actively pursue at least a couple more genuine prospects for fast bowlers from domestic cricket and collectively nurture them for the World Cup? What would happen to the state of mind if Shoaib Akhtar gets injured again? Do we have to rely on the mediocre attacks of Rao Iftikhar and Yasir Arafat for backup?**
** Ehsan: I don’t think there is any specific reason. These things do happen. Look at WI, at one time they had more than 6 or 7 really fast bowlers, now they are struggling. We are in the same position. We don’t necessarily have to have super fast bowlers. What we need is effective bowlers, Asif being one of them. It is more important that we have match winning bowlers than just fast ineffective bowlers like Sami. We have won series without Shoaib and Sami and that say s a lot about the depth of bowling we currently have.**
** Saby: Woolmer has personally taken interest in fast bowlers camp held at least twice under his reigs and he has highlighted Mohammad Irshad, Abdur Rauf as talented blokes with good pace although I dont think we need to see successor of Shoaib as yet because he still has some year left in him. I dont bother about the fact that we are running short of bowlers with extreme pace because someone will come along :-)**
** Faisal: These are two things here. Finding fast bowlers and role of Woolmer. First, I disagree that we don’t have good fast bowlers coming up the pike. The constant supply is very encouraging. Looking at the U-19 team tells you how much talent we have. Its just a matter of identifying and grooming the right talent. Asif is definitely one. I am sure there are more, who can use some polish to be viable candidates for the national team. Its true that Rao didn’t impress me (I haven’t seen Yasir bowl). I think it is important to have a tear-away fast bowler in the team in addition to the medium pacers. I don’t think its Woolmer’s role to sift through our domestic talent and identify fast bowlers. For this job, we hire fat @ss jokers like Wasim Bari. They should select the team, and then Woolmer should take over. Despite having a specialist bowling coach, Woolmer’s role is still extremely important. He is there to groom the team in all departments and make strategies with the captain. Having Waqar with the team is definitely a plus.**
Question #** 4) During the recent home series with India, multiple editions of Straight Drive witnessed Imran Khan who consistently proposed his theory that every major batsman should bat up the order whilst making himself take up the responsibility as one of the primary backbones of the team. Now that Inzamam has promoted himself upto number four position with an average of 40, do you agree/disagree with this change?**
** Ehsan: I agree, your best batsmen should bat up the order. There is no point in sending “weaker” batsmen up the order and than when they get out the latter batsmen come under pressure and sometimes cannot perform to their full potential.**
** Saby: I agree with Inzimam coming at four. I did not agree with Inzimam’s continuous obsession with Younis khan batting at three because Shoaib Malik was scoring runs there. Now Malik has been promoted to open so I have no reservations about this as a fan. Inzimam/Yousuf will always swap these places according to situations/form and by no means its a permanent position for either of them.**
** Faisal: Our lack of stable opening pair is by far the biggest problem. Inzi should always bat #4 and Yousif at #5. Thats a no-brainer. The position of #3 is up for grabs. I can see Imran’s argument that sending Younis there will hold the innings together. At the same time, considering the brittleness of our openers, I am not sure if Younis can manage the early new ball as effectively in an ODI game (especially when we are NOT playing India, whom Younis owns). Personally I am very impressed by Shoaib Malik. I think he is not only a multi-faceted player who brings a lot to the table, but also is the future leader of our team. I don’t care much about the experiment of Kamran Akmal as the opener. I like specialist openers.**
Question #** 5) Talking strictly in terms of next year’s World Cup and given the current state of two sub-continental teams while eliminating all the rest of the teams from this equation, what are the chances, in your opinion, of either Pakistan or India taking the World Cup? Does either side rate higher on your scale?**
** Ehsan: I don’t think either will win the world cup. At the moment I rate India higher than Pakistan in ODI’s. Still my heart is always with Pakistan and I will root for them all the way.**
** Saby: India is a more flexible side with the likes of Dhoni and Pathan capable of batting on any position. They have a good bowling line up and exciting young talent in Raina (who I personally think is slightly over-rated). Indians had a really good run in one dayers of late against good one day sides. Pakistan on the other hand are more multidimensional side with three very capable ODI all-rounders which give them real edge in one day arena. Not discounting the recent drubbing our team had against Indians, I would rate Pakistan’s chances higher than the Indians when both teams play to their full potential. This is a key word here though.**
** Faisal: Just between these two, I’d like to rate Pakistan’s chances better. Despite the smack down they got at home by India, Pakistan’s over all team balance and record in recent months is very good. Unfortunately Pakistan bowlers are owned by the likes of Sehwag, Dhoni and Pathan. None of them have any kind of solid technique. However, when I see the larger scheme of things, I don’t see either Pakistan or India with much of a chance to win the cup. Both of them have a pretty good chance of making it to the Finals, though. And thats about it. Ofcourse, as a Pakistani I’d love to see Pakistan lift the cup.**
Question #** 6) Finally, what would be your final squad for the England tour? How would you balance out the team given the seam and swing conditions in the English season?**
** Ehsan:
Farhat
Butt
Yousef
Inzi
Younis
Razzaq
Afridi
Akmal
Asif
Rana
Kaneria**
** Saby: Imran Farhat, Shoaib Malik, Younis Khan, Inzimam, Mohamammad Yousuf, Shahid Afridi, Kamran Akmal, Rana Naveed, Shoaib Akhtar, Danish Kaneria, Mohammad Asif
subs: Salman Butt, Abdul Razzaq, Faisal Iqbal, Umar Gul, Mohammad Sami**
** Faisal: Almost all our seam bowlers can be very successful in the English conditions. Plus Danesh and Malik are there to exploit Englishmen’s discomfort against quality spin. So bowling is not a worry for me. In batting, its the exact opposite. I don’t see any batsman in Pak line up (including Inzi) who gives me any comfort feeling. It will just be a matter of who gets adjusted quickly to play the formidable English attack. The current team that played India and Sri Lanka, for the most part is automatic selection for the English tour, so listing the team isn’t important. May be at the end of the tour we will just conclude that Pakistan batting sucks in England, and the best way to win against England is to invite them to Pakistan and beat the heck out of them. I am sure English fans have the same low expectations about their team going on a tour of the sub-continent. Playing conditions are so vastly different that you pretty much have to be at the level of Australia to win everywhere. Having said that, it is very possible that our current team turns out to be very successful in England. I still remember the '92 tour of England, and there is all the hope the current lot can give the English team a good run for their money.**
Ehsan Bhai, Saby Bhai and Faisal Bhai, thank you greatly once again for doing a comprehensive and detailed write-up on the list of questions provided. As I read through your answers, I had a lovely and splendid time, much to the joy of the rising sun on a Sunday morning, and I am sure our members will go through the same experience as well (perhaps minus the sun).
