From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step for our cricket stars
The Pakistan cricket team has stumbled and fallen like a newly broken colt, yet again. What the fans feared most, a humiliating capitulation, has come to pass: the greenshirts were shot out for under-50 runs at the Wanderers, Johannesburg, their lowest ever in Tests. There is no knowing the depths they can plumb, nor yet the unprecedented heights that they can attain on their day. This time around, with the overall national outlook already gloomy, the faces were grimmer and darker at the dubious new ‘record’.
True, the Proteas bowlers were magnificent on a supportive wicket in helpful conditions, and Dale Steyn’s mind-boggling 6-8 in eight overs and a bit in the first innings was the kind of yummy gift that is offered by our stalwarts when in panic mode. It was indeed a debacle, a worst case scenario, one which we always optimistically like to believe is a thing of the past, only for it to happen again, and yet again, exposing the timidity of our batting when there is a hint of bounce or lateral movement.
But to be fair, the South Africans, number one in Test rankings, are in such terrific form, they had also recently bowled out a weak touring Kiwi outfit for 45 and a much stronger Australia for 47 on the 2012 Down Under tour.
But, as is the norm, there were strange goings-on in our camp, especially in the choice of the final lineup for the first Test. The first weird decision, one that might, and one emphasizes might, just have tilted the balance in our favour, was the curious omission of Mohammad Irfan. After being given a big build up for his abnormal height and the additional bounce that he was sure to generate on the Wanderers pitch, it was inexplicable and illogical to see him sitting it out in the pavilion while his team was being massacred; there is no other word for it.
Perhaps Sherlock Holmes might have gotten to the bottom of this mystery which he would surely call ‘a three-pipe problem’, but it is beyond the ken of ordinary mortals.
It is clear that by no stretch of the imagination can this defeat be attributed to the wire pulling and machinations of the Wise Men of Zion or their minions. So we are only left with the band of brothers at the Pakistan Cricket Board to turn to for some answers.
South Africa cannot be faulted for preparing a wicket fully favouring their vaunted pace battery, but more importantly, the Pakistanis were pitch forked into the first Test immediately after only a rain-interrupted four-day practice match, thereby allowing little preparation time to the tourists to adapt to the drastically different conditions.
The jubilant South Africans have meanwhile dispersed to their homes and families the next Test begins on 14 February. One wonders whether the PCB even tried to get in some more acclimatisation time and match practice from their hosts when the tour was being planned and finalised. Apparently not, as the long wait till the 14th of this month also testifies.
With the benefit of hindsight, an equally disastrous decision was the inclusion of Rahat Ali in the crucial first Test. With no Tests and only one ODI against Sri Lanka (3-0-18-0 and 0 not out) as his credentials, he was surprisingly given the nod over the more experienced Tanvir Ahmed, whose swinging talents suited the conditions, and also over the other available quick Ehsan Adil.
But the ‘original sin’ lay in omitting the likes of Wahab Riaz and Aizaz Cheema from the initial touring squad. And as proof of the selection committees’ eccentric choices, whatever happened to a certain quickie named Mohammad Sami, who had been chosen in all three formats for last year’s Sri Lankan tour and the World Twenty20, and did precious little in any of them.
And what of that classical batsman with the ‘golden age’ cover drive, Mohammad Yousuf? What sin has made him a persona non grata or an outcast with the PCB hierarchy since the Ijaz Butt regime, while those of the ilk of the (inevitable) Imran Farhat and Faisal Iqbal, after failing umpteenth times in the past, are back again in the squad, when they should both have been Home Alone!
One feels that even veteran (though like Merlin the Magician he seems to be living backwards in time and getting younger every year) Shahid Afridi should have had a place in the tourist party if only for his impressive record as a leg spinner. The two matches that Pakistan has won in South Africa on earlier tours were courtesy of pace cum leg spin, with Mushtaq Ahmad and Danish Kaneria being the party of the second part. One can learn from history, even in cricket.
And then again, was the fitness of the players confirmed beyond any doubt at the time of selection of the touring party? Taufiq Umar before the first Test and now Haris Sohail after injury have been withdrawn from the squad.
But the biggest blunder (so far) has been the peculiar omission of Mohammad Irfan from the playing eleven at the Wanderers. In moments of self-pity or fantasy, one still imagines Pakistan’s ‘Big Bird’ with the new ball on that bouncy and seaming track and wonders at what might have been. The name of the genius who made that unfortunate decision should be made public, or at least the rationale and process of the little grey cells (if any) leading up to it.
One thing is for sure: you can ignore merit and common sense at your peril, whether in the game of cricket or in the larger national sphere. Failure and retribution will not be far behind – and ahead too.
The writer is a freelance columnist.