Inzamam-ul-Haq bats for The News
The story of the Pakistan cricket team’s rise, and fall, has been quite well known to all. I have been a part of the side for the last sixteen years. Whenever the team registers a defeat, certain people let loose a barrage of criticism at the national cricketers, mainly to serve their own nefarious purpose.
Our critics, who have taken upon the task of bashing us following the loss in the one-day series, have perhaps tended to overlook the fact that we have just ended victorious in the Test rubber. As the Pakistan captain, I admit that India have outclassed Pakistan, but the perception, that the Pakistan team had become overconfident after the Test win, is just not true.
Following the wins in the Karachi Test and the Peshawar One-day International, the Pakistan team has suffered losses because its batting line-up has floundered. Our top three batsmen have continued to fail in the one-dayers while the Indian bowling has simply not allowed us any chances.
Apart from myself, Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan are the pillars of strength of our batting. But all three of us have not been able to play any match-winning knocks in the first four matches of the series. Shoaib Malik though was refreshingly successful in the first three games, with successive innings of 90, 95 and 108.
When the top order batting of any team collapses, it is imperative that its problems aggravate. However, even the Pakistan bowlers have failed to rise to the occasion. In the first one-dayer in Peshawar, we crossed 300 runs while chasing a big target. Thereafter, the batting line-up didn’t perform according to expectations in the three subsequent matches.
We scored at least 50 to 60 runs less than required in every game. The Indian bowlers, on the other hand, performed exceptionally. The bowlers received incredible assistance from their fielders. The real difference between the two teams in the one-day series has actually been the performance of the fielders.
Apart from myself, Younis and Yousuf, Salman Butt too has failed miserably with the bat. The century-maker of the first match in Peshawar has simply failed to get off to a good start in the last three games. On each occasion, we have been put under extreme pressure from the very beginning of every innings.
Following the failure of the openers, the top order batting too has been under immense pressure. But, in my role as the Pakistan captain, I have full faith in the capabilities of my players. This very team will collect several important wins in the not so distant future, by the Grace of Almighty Allah.
Using the oft-repeated cliche, winning and losing are just part of playing any sport. I admit that we have been summarily vanquished. But after just one defeat, the previous victorious exploits of the team seem to have been forgotten. The tours of Sri Lanka and England are now just round the corner. The same players will surely overcome their new opponents with their personal and collective performances.
The world has not come to a dead-halt following our defeat in the one-day series against India. The next two international rubbers are important too. I am not disappointed with my players after the recent loss. The same set of players will turn the outfit into a victorious one in no time at all.
Pakistan’s former Test cricketers never let go of any opportunity to unleash unwarranted criticism at the national side. As during several times in the past, this particular set of gentlemen have once again fished out their daggers for us.
They conveniently tend to overlook the fact that this same team has been compiling one win after another for the last one year and a half.
But everyone has jumped on to the bandwagon of critics following our loss against India. Everyone appears to be making full use of the chance to hurt the sentiments of the national cricket players. This was the same side that defeated India in the Test rubber.
Whenever the Pakistan team ends up on the losing side, former cricketers start their camapign to degrade the players instead of boosting their confidence or giving them sound advice. They too had gone through similar situations in the past, but today they clamour for ‘accountability’.
The same cricketers of the past tend to forget that they were let off without any accountability when they had under-performed or suffered one defeat after another. The current Pakistan team, instead of listening to the barrage of criticism, has in fact turned a deaf ear towards it and is focused solely on its own performance.
I remember vividly when we proceeded on the tour of India last year, a certain former captain had gone on to the extent to say that this was the weakest Pakitan outfit ever to visit India. When we returned after having won the limited overs series, this same gentleman was singing songs in our praise!
That’s why I believe that one should measure all one’s thoughts before saying anything. This same team has been winning in the recent past. And by the Grace of Allah, it will soon get back to its winning ways.
I am not averse to criticism. But if criticism is unleashed with some ulterior motive, then I get a bit hurt and upset. Those who indulge in it totally unnecessarily should also take a peek into their own past before getting involved in mud-slinging.
The Indian team has already won the one-day series. But I am hoping that our players will return to their best form in today’s final encounter in Karachi and try their utmost to reduce the margin of defeat.
The Indian captain Rahul Dravid and his team both deserve their victory because they have played very good cricket in the last three matches. But, after having won the recent Test match here at the National Stadium, my team also wants to win the One-day International at this venue.
We are going to make two changes in the Pakistan line-up. We would like to induct a couple of fresh players. We would thus have the opportunity to try out a new combination in both batting and bowling.
The team that manages to overcome its follies goes on to turn into a world-beating unit. My team is also determined to learn from its past mistakes, so they work on the weak areas and develop a whole new strategy for the future.
On another note, The News registered a counter article by Asif Iqbal, a former Pakistani captain. In this series, Asif has defended Imran’s theory of sending the main crop of batters (of any team) in the first four top-order positions, a tactic which Dravid perfectly and courageously mastered, but on the other hand, Inzamam never understood and signified the importance behind any such connotation, and effectively, his (Inzamam’s) plan backfired several times after the plan to send Malik before Yousuf, Younis and himself was implemented. The latter three (3) utterly failed to register a massive knock under the circumstances provided to them.
A show which could have been better conducted
By Asif Iqbal
Former Pakistan and Kent cricket captain
KARACHI: Regrettably, the final ODI between Pakistan and India at Karachi will lose some of its edge with the series already having been won by India, but there is always a great deal to play for in any international match, especially one between India and Pakistan.
I have little doubt that Pakistan will try to come back hard to salvage pride; the captain and coach have a great deal to play for as some of their tactics has been under fire throughout this one day series, particularly the batting line-up.
Imran Khan has made the point repeatedly that in a limited overs game, it is imperative that the best batsmen in the side get to face the maximum number of overs. That is why Sachin Tendulkar opens for India and Stephen Fleming opens for New Zealand although they do not generally open in Test matches. The move sometimes fails, but there can be little argument in the theory behind it. Thus India’s top three batsmen, Sehwag, Tendulkar and Dravid, tend to come in the first four batting positions.
That is not the way Pakistan has chosen to play it and I must say that I am not happy with it. There is an impression — which may or may not be justified — that Pakistan’s three top batsmen, Inzamam, Yousuf and Younis, are being shielded behind younger players who do not have their technical competence or their experience. The result in this series has been that they have therefore been playing in pressure situations with wickets having gone down early and the pressure has meant that sometimes, they too have found the going too difficult.
I was disappointed to see Inzamam write in his column suggesting some sort of ulterior motive behind such criticism. I can assure him that having finished my international cricket more than 25 years ago, I have no axe to grind and I am quite sure neither does Imran. One has to learn to take criticism on board for if one gets into the ‘conspiracy theory’ mindset, one is never likely to learn from one’s mistakes.
And indeed, if Inzamam feels that this criticism is not valid, the place to prove it is out there in the middle. That has not happened for Pakistan in this one-day series. Their only success has come through the less than satisfactory Duckworth-Lewis method and if play had continued in Peshawar, who knows, we could well have been down 4-0 now. India, on the other hand, has won all its matches by a mile.
The excellence of the Indian batting has, I think, shown up the Pakistan attack to be rather poorer that it actually has been. The absence of Shoaib Akhtar has, of course, been a huge factor for it is not just the wickets he takes but the pressure he creates at one end which often helps the bowler at the other end to cash in. Afridi too was missed at Multan and given his lack of fitness and the seaming conditions, I would not support the decision to open the innings with him at Multan.
For most Pakistanis, as well throughout the Diaspora, the match comes to them through their TV screens and their are some aspects of the coverage which I have found rather difficult to understand. The panel discussion involving one Pakistani and one English cricketer with an Indian anchor is one of them.
I really cannot see why an England cricketer should be on this panel in a position where he is expected to give the Indian point of view. Also, the agenda for the discussion should be set by a neutral person and this role could be given to an former England player if for some reason it was deemed absolutely imperative to have an England player on the screen.
It was interesting to see Rameez Raja during the presentation ceremony at Multan speak to the young Indian seamer R P Singh in Urdu. Yet, when it came to the Pakistan captain, he switched to English, a language in which Inzamam is not very fluent. Inzamam’s lack of fluency in English is in no way a reflection on him as a cricketer or a human being in any other capacity, but Rameez’s insistence to interview him in English is something I find quite inexplicable.
If the idea is to cater to an international audience then someone must have done the translating for R P Singh abroad and the same could be done for Inzamam. I know it for a fact that quite a few Pakistan players, whose English is less than fluent, dread getting the Man of the Match award for fear of the ordeal of an interview in English. As I see it, it is an entirely unnecessary ordeal and one through which they are put quite needlessly.
I also feel that the presence of an army of officials on the stage during the presentation ceremony gives an untidy look to proceedings and if it serves a purpose other than massaging the already inflated egos of many of our officials, I am unaware of it. The representatives of the sponsors are the only one who have a right to be there, for they are paying money to get their products on to the TV screen; the army of officials only block their advertisement hoardings for which they have paid handsome amounts of money.