Here the Rawalpindi express is Pointing fingers at other Bowlers.
Pakistan v India, 1st Test, Multan
Attacking the bowlers
The Paper Round by Rahul Bhatia
April 2, 2004
At the end of the first Test, while one team was still on the field, practicing hard and preparing themselves for the next match at Lahore, the commentary-box door opened and out stepped Imran Khan, who had watched disbelievingly as India put up 675 runs, and then bowled Pakistan out twice for less than that. He let fly at the bowlers.
“After knowing that India has the best batting line-up in the world, you people kept bowling short and wide outside the off stump,” Imran chastised them before walking away, according to Mid Day.
“I don’t want to lay too much blame on the batsmen because they tried hard in the first innings,” added Inzamam-ul-Haq, whose responsibilities as captain prohibit him from publicly snarling at his bowlers. “But any team is always under immense pressure when it is chasing a total of 675.”
Shoaib Akhtar, who was inaccurate on the first day and luckless on the second, understood his captain … and promptly pointed a finger at the rest of the attack. Mid Day quoted Shoaib: “The Pakistani bowling needs to attack the Indian batsmen. It is okay till I am bowling. But when I am not, the other members in the team have to pull their socks up. They have to understand their role, the way I am trying to understand all the pros and cons of the match,” Shoaib said. Nonetheless, he was optimistic. “It is a three-match Test series, so we have the opportunity to strike back.”
That’s the way to go, according to Omar Kureishi, writing in The Indian Express. “Pakistan need a rephrasing of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous words: `We have nothing to fear but fear itself’,” Kureishi expressed. “For reasons best known to its thinktank, it went into this Test in a defensive mode. That is a formula for disaster. It will have to more than just regroup. It will have to find self-belief somehow.” Kureishi added that India were expected to be determined, but the Australian-like killer instinct was a surprise.
Harsha Bhogle, in the same paper, wrote about when it began. “It started with VVS Laxman and Harbhajan Singh at Kolkata in 2001. That Test must rank as a landmark in our history and was followed by Headingley in 2002, Adelaide in 2003 and Multan in 2004. These defining moments have instilled in this team a belief I have never seen in Indian cricket.”
Bhogle had a special mention for Irfan Pathan and Anil Kumble who “have shown the great power of desire. One has shown the broadest shoulders in Indian cricket in the last 15 years … The other is like a kid in a party, wide-eyed, waiting for the next show to begin and only just becoming aware that he is in fact that show.”
The kid took six wickets, and Imran noticed. “[Pakistan] were psyched by the bowling of Irfan Pathan in the one-dayers and they thought that if they played on a grassy wicket, their batsmen would not be able to handle the talented left-arm bowler,” Imran took a swipe in his column for The Times of India. “As a result, they got the grass shaved off on the eve of the first Test. Pace is this Pakistan team’s greatest strength, and once they denied the fast men a helpful wicket, Multan was a lost cause.”
That’s not the way it was meant to be, wrote Rameez Raja in his syndicated column for Gameplan: “We had decided to play a Test at Multan since we felt that the wicket at this venue would be more suitable to our pacemen than the one at Faisalabad. Andy Atkinson had left a little grass to ensure some life in the pitch, but the team management thought this was not a good idea, and as a result we had a brown, bare pitch on the morning of the match.”
And with words that would sound eerily familiar to erring teenagers the world over, Rameez wrote that the board had let the boys have their way for long enough, and would now step in to take control over the matter.
© Wisden Cricinfo Ltd
I think the only bowler who seemed like putting an effort was Sami and not Shoaib!