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| Something is rotten in the state of Pakistan cricket |
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No matter what’s been said about a ‘united’ team, the truth is that the players are deeply divided
Sunday, January 25, 2009
By Khalid Hussain
KARACHI: Almost two years after kicking off a so-called rebuilding campaign following a humiliating first-round exit from the 2007 World Cup, Pakistan seem to have covered little ground.
It’s quite obvious that something is terribly wrong in the Pakistan camp and concrete actions will have to be taken to ensure that the Greenshirts don’t falter again in the 2011 World Cup that which is to be co-hosted by Pakistan with its South Asian neighbors.
The embarrassing 234-run loss against Sri Lanka — Pakistan’s heaviest defeat in One-day Internationals — in the series finale in Lahore on Saturday makes it evident that any claims by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) or the national team management that everything is falling in place are widely off the mark.
Sri Lanka are hardly an in-form team, something that was quite evident from the below-par showing in the low-profile ODI triangular in Bangladesh earlier this season involving the hosts and minnows Zimbabwe. Pakistan, too, exposed their weaknesses in an emphatic eight-wicket triumph in the series opener in Karachi earlier this week.
The way Sri Lanka fought back to win the series doesn’t only highlight their killer instinct but also underlines the fact something is rotten in the state of Pakistan cricket.
Some extensive investigations carried out by ‘The News’ have revealed that no matter what the Pakistan captain Shoaib Malik and the team officials say about having united the team, the truth of the matter is that the players are deeply divided, like the way they were when Pakistan fell at the very first hurdles in the 2003 World Cup in South Africa and the 2007 spectacle in the Caribbean.
Information gathered from various sources indicates that Malik is hardly acting as a binding force. In fact, apart from a few of his close buddies in the team, most players are wary of him and suspect his motives each time he wants a change in the team.
Senior players see him as an insecure captain, somebody who doesn’t really deserve his place in the Pakistan Test squad.
Players like premier batsman Mohammad Yousuf and all-rounder Abdul Razzaq — once regarded as candidates for the Pakistan captainship — have openly accused Malik for hatching conspiracies against them to cement his own position as the Pakistan captain.
Well-placed sources have informed this correspondent that such allegations are not without some truth.
According to an insider, Malik has spent the best part of his first two-year tenure as captain trying to convince the PCB top brass and national selectors that the national team will be better off without the services of several senior players.
“Malik used to bring a list of five players, whom he wanted out of the Pakistan team. From day one, he was against Mohammad Yousuf, Shoaib Akhtar, Shahid Afridi, Younis Khan and even Umar Gul,” said the insider who was present at the meetings held between the selectors and the national team management during 2007 and 2008.
According to the insider, Malik was instrumental in getting Yousuf’s name omitted from squad for the inaugural Twenty20 World championship in South Africa in 2007. It was a snub that forced Yousuf to defect to the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL).
Yousuf was later persuaded to quit ICL and join the official Indian Premier League (IPL) by former PCB chief Nasim Ashraf, but the damage was done. Last November, Yousuf — easily Pakistan’s most accomplished batsman in recent years — rejoined the ICL after failing to find a place in the twenty20 squad for a four-nation event in Canada.
Earlier this week, Malik publicly criticised seasoned pacer Shoaib Akhtar for his lack of commitment after a crushing defeat in the second one-dayer. That he first chose to speak to the media about Shoaib’s fitness and commitment before talking to his bowler first said a lot about Malik’s intentions and his skills as a captain.
“Most senior players believe that they are on Malik’s hit-list,” said a source in the Pakistan camp.
“Yousuf was the first one. Then it was Shoaib and the next could be Afridi. Younis and others could follow if Malik continues to enjoy the support of the PCB top brass,” added the source.
Another source said that Malik’s guns don’t just target the senior players. “It was Malik who persuaded the current selectors to drop Fawad Alam from the squad for the series against Sri Lanka,” said the source referring to the talented all-rounder from Karachi.
Fawad is making his bones as a reliable middle-order batsman, who can be used as a spinner. Many experts believe the boy has a bright future in international cricket.
But Fawad, who scored a triple century on a tour of Kenya with the Pakistan Academy last summer and has been scoring prolifically in domestic games, wasn’t even picked in a 15-man squad for the series against Sri Lanka.
It feels like deja vu. Under Inzamam-ul-Haq in 2006, Pakistan seemed like a disjointed lot with little unity among the players.
Little seems to have changed under Malik, who was handpicked to succeed Inzamam by former PCB chief Nasim Ashraf after the World Cup fiasco.
While Inzamam managed to get away with his incompetence as captain mainly because he was a very accomplished batsman — one of the best in the world — it’s surprising that Malik too have enjoyed the support of the concerned authorities though he is hardly in the same league as Inzamam.
At best, Malik is a good all-rounder, who can be used as a utility played in limited overs cricket. Mohammad Yousuf certainly has a point. Malik is hardly an automatic choice for Tests.
Pakistan’s dilemma is that their cricket chiefs firmly believe that Malik is currently their best option as captain.
But will a player, who can hardly bind a team together, ever become a good captain. It’s quite unlikely.
During his two years as captain, Malik’s Pakistan have hardly clicked when it mattered most. They did reach the World Twenty20 championship final but lost in the title clash to India. They did win a tri-nation title in Bangladesh and repeated similar success in the ODI series against the West Indies in Abu Dhabi.
But the success part covers a small chapter in what is a story of disappointments.
The back-to-back defeats in Test and ODI series at home in the fall of 2007 followed by similar losses on the tour of India that year. The list also includes Pakistan’s failure to even reach the Asia Cup on home soil last summer. And now the humiliating defeats at the hands of Sri Lanka.
Pakistan cricket’s think-tank — if any such group exists — needs to take a long hard look at the situation. What happened in Lahore on Saturday is the sort of wake-up call that cannot be ignored. The 2011 World Cup is two years away and there is still time to take sweeping measures. Whether the PCB will take them, however, is a different question.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
