Cricket disgrace

Game over?

There was a time, spanning decades, when abundant natural talent was treated to textbook top-down discipline in the national cricket outfit to produce world class players and, subsequently, teams. This process lasted, roughly, from the famous ’54 Oval Test – when Kardar’s boys bested the legendary Hutton’s – to the ’99 World Cup, when Waseem’s Greens tore through to the final before crashing out. Under Inzamam, with lieutenants like Younis and Yousaf to count on, there were occasional flashes of brilliance over the next few years. But there’s been little to write home about since, and premature burnout and collapse has come to identify the team’s overall performance.

The embarrassing defeat to India in the latest T20 encounter was just further confirmation of this trend. A green-top pitch, good fielding pressure, a couple of early wickets and once again nobody could stand up to the pressure – especially senior players with decades of experience – and the team fell like a house of cards, once again. And, ironically, the only two players that played well – Sarfraz’s somewhat steady batting and Amir’s brilliant opening spell – have been resisted in the dressing room for one reason or the other.

Yet attributing this embarrassment and humiliation to the team alone would be unfair. The paralysis stems from the systemic breakdown at the core of the PCB, where politics of power and patronage take precedence over anything remotely related to cricket. Concerned stakeholders warned of just such a mess when Najam Sethi and Zaka Ashraf played musical chairs, and the prime minister went out of his way to facilitate his blue-eyed at an assignment for which he lacked managerial as well as operational experience. And now that these players have cemented themselves atop the Board, they are clearly without a clue about their real duty – returning the team to its winning ways. Sadly, going by precedent, there is little chance of this latest on-field disaster of triggering a result-oriented reshuffling at the PCB. However, unless something is done, and urgently, it will be game over for Pakistani cricket as we have known it for so long.