Whereas the entire nation went into a stupor of depression when our own boys lost to the men in blue, the fact remains that our team did exceed expectations by doing what nobody, not anybody, would have expected of them by reaching the semi-finals.
What was indeed disappointing was that Pakistan put itself up beautifully for a glorious win but squandered many chances.
The Pakistani team has a curious split personality. There is the Good Pakistan and the Bad Pakistan. The former is the disciplined annihilator (i.e. our fabulous bowling) and the latter is a bungling error-machine (i.e. our incorrigibly error-prone batting lineup and our flawed fielding). Its almost a clich but our match is always more with ourselves than with the opponent and we soundly defeated ourselves by fielding miserably and batting even more miserably on a flat-as-a-screech pitch that shouldve been batting heaven. But now we need to look ahead and fix the glaring errors this defeat has only made more glaring.
The mental strength of our team is wobblier than jelly. Our psychological fragility has been exposed over and over again over the last few years when we have failed to win crunch matches and crumbled horrendously while comfortably poised to win.
We absolutely, absolutely need a full-time fielding coach. The butterfingers in our team need a hard and experienced taskmaster.
We need young blood as Wahab Riaz and Umar Akmal have proved. People past their sell-by date like Misbah should be shelved as this match is proof that their experience counts for nothing but passed time.
Afridi has proved a great unifying force in the team and a great rallying power even if his decisions as captain havent been the best. He should continue and groom our next leader under his tutelage. Also, we need better management. The teams sprint to the semis should not gloss over the gross incompetence that has characterised the PCB ever since the venerable Butt has taken over. He needs to resign in good faith before he is kicked out. Only a better management can use this performance as leverage to bring international cricket back to Pakistan and to reshape Pakistans team.
Our team has given us hope and tried to extinguish it. But there are positives to take home and build upon. Lets look forward rather than crying over spilt milk.
ALINA HASSAN
Lahore
