Pakistan’s emphatic win against the Proteas
Pakistan’s second last outing in Tests was against the bottom-of-the-pile Zimbabwe. It lost, by some 20-odd runs to earn brickbats galore. The next was against the top of the Test totem pole, South Africa. The Team Pakistan embarrassed its opponent with a seven wicket thumping inside four days. What brought about the transformation? For starters, a change in venue, from a seam and swing friendly Harare track to a more familiar Abu Dhabi Stadium where its spin duo could find greater purchase from a track amenable to turn – and owing to their dexterity, the cobwebs in the opponent’s minds. Though the spin duo Saeed Ajmal and Zulfiqar Babar made a telling impact, between them sharing two-thirds of 20 SA wickets, this by no means is the whole story. The two southpaw quicks, Irfan and Junaid too created their own scare, accounting for seven scalps. But our bowling performed like it almost always does: doing the damage with precision. In cricket, the aphorism is: bowlers orchestrate wins. True, but the opposite equally holds: without runs on the board, even a bowling attack from Mars cannot rustle up victories on its own. This time round, it was the batting that provided the runs at the top with Khurram Manzoor and the debutant Shan Masood together putting 135 runs for the first wicket, following by the ton-up Misbah holding the middle with characteristic aplomb.
In the second and last Test of the rubber from day after tomorrow, hurting deep, South Africa would come back strong. Whether Team Pakistan will wilt or retain its winning ways, like it did against the then world No 1 England two seasons back? It will depend on the positive outlook it showcased in the first outing. A defensive approach would see SA turning the cart on them.
More important than musing on the emphatic Test win is turning the Team Pakistan into the numero uno of the cricketing realm. And that is not possible without turning the PCB into a meritocracy, because it is an established fact that only the nations that possess top administrations can boast of all-conquering outfits. In the middle of the Abu Dhabi Test, the PM installed himself as the chief patron of PCB and retained his previously handpicked acting chairman through clamping an ad hoc. Such style of management has been Pakistan’s bane for the last decade and a half, yet we somehow refuse to learn. In that context, the Team Pakistan’s superb win too was perhaps an aberration.
