ISLAMABAD – Sport should be taken as sport, but the Mohali defeat has raised many questions, among them the most critical one being: why had Pakistan not opted for the power-play when Shahid Afridi and Misbah-ul-Haq, captain and vice captain respectively, were at the crease?
What makes everyone suspect that it was a fixed match, with Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani being the chief guest on the historic event, was the way the Indians took a start and Pakistan clearly appeared directionless with no strategy on the ground and changed the game plan. The Indians put Pakistan under pressure and they succeeded.
Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman Ijaz Butt – who has already earned a bad reputation for doing things his way – and his cronies, who promoted him as “father of cricket”, must answer as to why the option of power-play was not availed at a time, after 40 overs, when the game was equally poised with two top batsmen already there to hit hard and turn the game in Pakistan’s favour.
Catches win matches. And when you drop four catches and those too in a do-or-die match, you don’t deserve to win. Umar Gul was battered like a child bowling to world stars but he failed to regain his lost confidence and the Indians went berserk, hitting him all around.
Though Shahid Afridi kept his cool despite failures in the field, he made the mistake of his life by bringing back Umar Gul to bowl the 49th over instead of Abdul Razzaq, who had bowled only two overs. In Kamran Akmal, we have a below club-level wicket-keeper but he continues to stay behind the wickets.
Most importantly, the batting order was not changed by bringing Shahid Afridi and Abdul Razzaq on one and two down positions to relieve the pressure. The experienced Younis Khan remained a failure throughout the World Cup and no Pakistani batsman could score a century in the tournament.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik cannot go scot-free. If anything went wrong with the morale of the team, it was Rehman Malik who had made such a despicable statement two days before the semi-final match and the players came under psychological pressure.
Authenticating the suspicion of many, the Foreign Office spokesperson said that Mohali was a “win” for the Pakistan-India dialogue process.
