The future for cricket fans in Pakistan is a dismal one
For as long as media have existed sportswriters and commentators have equated the contest between teams and individuals on the playing fields and courts with murderous excursions on the battlefield. It is no coincidence either, for sports, as does battle, bring out both the best and worst in its participants: honing individual skills and abilities to perfection, exhibiting courage in the face of adversity, successfully executing plans into action through teamwork, facing and overcoming challenges, and showing humility and magnanimity in victory are some of the virtues shared between the two forms of competition whereas common negatives include disrespecting the opponent and resorting to unchivalrous tactics. No wonder then that preparatory schools and colleges in bygone days placed much emphasis and importance on sports as games were seen as key tools for developing character and grooming leadership. And so it has been that terms and words such as ‘battle’, ‘warriors’, ‘debacle’, ‘surrender’, ‘crushing defeat’, ‘massacre’, ‘vanquish’, ‘battle between equals’ and ‘conquered’ have over the decades crept into the lexicon of those who report sporting contests.
Sadly, the recently concluded T20 series between New Zealand and the touring Pakistan teams was such a mis-matched contest that it is time new terms, or reference to an occupation, to quote General George S Patton, other than the “supreme test of a man in which he rises to heights never approached in any other activity” are sought for by sportswriters and commentators. For, the fashion in which our men (and I use the term reservedly) were humiliated in the second and third games was so distressing, so shameful and so pathetic it made Waterloo look like a glorious victory for Napoleon. The margins of defeat in the last two games, and the manner in which the defeats were inflicted, were so grievous and so insulting that the retreat of the Nazi armies from Russia can be termed an organised strategic withdrawal. It is most decidedly unfair to use military nomenclature to describe what the boys in green suffered or how they performed as it would be an insult to the memory of all the millions who have died on battlefields since the advent of organized warfare.
Whereas the first game, won by Pakistan, was more a case of the New Zealanders just not showing up for the event, thanks perhaps to overzealous celebrations after humiliating and sending back another eleven men to their small island in the Indian Ocean just prior to our arrival on their shores, than it was ever a case of excellence by the Pakistanis the second and third games clearly demonstrated — even to the most delusional or blind — the wide and ever widening gulf between the two teams. The Antipodeans, who have been showcasing an exciting, aggressive and brilliant brand of cricket for some years now, came up against and duly steamrolled a team that has blown hot and cold so frequently over the last so many decades one wonders if it is a team of professional sportsmen or a patchy WiFi connection in a mountainous region.
In summary, our batsmen cannot bat to save their lives, our bowlers cannot dismiss quality batsmen and our fielders cannot field. It has been the case so often now that we lose our opening batsmen early in the opening stages; it appears our selfie-loving openers believe an opener is there for facing the first delivery or so instead of forming a solid foundation for others to build on. Our team is also replete with supposed talismans — men who can turn a game on its head but who in our case deliver the goods three or four times in two-scores of outings — yet who sputter with all the lust of a wet firework in the monsoons. Apply the slightest amount of pressure and our batting lineup self-implodes and is scattered around like a house of cards in a typhoon. The rush of madness and the subsequent irrational and inexplicable decisions and actions of our batsmen compel one to tear out one’s hair.
With the ODI games about to get underway cricket fans in Pakistan should expect to witness more of the brutal and abject humiliation that was our just reward in the T20 series. Our team, alas, is drawn from our own ranks, and as such possesses the ‘fine’ national traits of overestimating one’s own abilities, underestimating the opponent’s strengths, impatience, hot-headedness, unprofessionalism and the belief that passion will win over skill every single time. Our cricket structure is stuck in a time warp — it operates in an era that has long been overtaken by progress and innovation in developing professional athletes, world class fitness programmes, skills, etc. Forward thinking can hardly be a hallmark of the PCB when its two senior officers combined have nearly a hundred and fifty years of inexperience in cricket. The future for cricket fans in Pakistan, at least in the shortened versions of the game, is a dismal one, one that will be full of failures and disappointing performances — occasionally interjected with flashes of brilliance and the rare victory. And for years to come our team shall be lost at sea and out of its depth as is the case with it currently floundering in the Antipodes.
