I think its about time we stopped looking at our cricket team’s glorious past and looking at our current team through that lens.
The team that was right up to the WC 2003 was one that was well aged and had reached its zenith and came back down from it long ago. It was a dying old man that had lived its life. Just that instead of letting it cough its way to death, the selectors decided to kill the old man.
The team we have now is a reincarnation of that old man. But it is nowhere close to reaching maturity. It is still an infant that needs to be constantly nurtured and cared for. Therefore i believe we should all lower our expectations of the team and instead of comparing it to the likes of Australia and India we should compare it to maybe West Indies and New Zealand.
And then just wait and hope for another Imran Khan to show up and repeat history all over again.
chegum: I agree with you to a certain extent, but I don't think that our team is still in the "infant" stage. I would rather say it's a teenager now, trying to find his way through puberty (no consistency in the team yet). So definitely we can't compare ourselves with "mature" teams like Australia, but I also think that we are on a good path to reach that stage in one or two years.
Hmm alright teenager sounds good... but as long as Shoaib Akhtar stays out. With him around, a more suitable phrase for the team would be 'spoiled brat'.
I disagree with what PCB did to the team after WC'03. PCB was only eyeing WC'07, they forgot that there is something beyond ODI cricket called Test cricket. What they should've done was discard "some" players from OD unit but keep most of it in Test match unit and groom more youngster thru Test team. Right now we have a very good OD unit due to some lapara skills but very lacking Test unit which shows your real cricket skills.
Anyway, I really don't expect a 3-0 Pakistan win in tests or 6-0 ODI Pakistan win... all I want is the show of fighting spirit they displayed in VB series, if we are loosing then we go down fighting.
