05 February 2004	Thursday	13 Zilhaj 1424

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has acted with commendable urgency in appointing the selection committee and the captain. It now remains to pick the likely squad, perhaps 16 players , and this too should be done without further delay so that the groundwork is completed.

Those picked for the squad, however should not be wrapped in cotton wool but should be made to play domestic cricket. They have to remain match-fit. If there are plans for a training camp, the duration of such a camp should not be more than a week. And it should be used to fine-tune the squad.

The Pakistan team needs a trainer and a physio and possibly a fielding coach and should surf the job market and get them as soon as possible, if need be on a short-term basis but well ahead of the start of India's tour. The goal is to have the team in prime condition. You don't need much motivation for a series against India. The danger lies in over-motivation for this creates pressure. There will be pressure enough but it will be on both teams. Neither team will need pep-talks.

India has emerged as one of the best teams in the world and its tour of Australia has been a good one and the confidence level will be high. It drew the Test series and even if it does not win the VB triangular tournament, it does done enough to lift its morale.

Australia may have been without Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne but India has been without Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh and the bowling looks thin but Irfan Pathan has come of age and Vangipurappu Laxman's form is ominous. And this is the best batting side that India has ever had and no longer depends on Sachin Tendulkar. Most of all, India is playing as a team. The credit for this must go to the captain, Saurav Ganguly and to the coach John Wright who remains low profile and in the wings.

I see absolutely no reason why Pakistan cannot match them as a unit and why it too can't play as a team. It showed vast improvement on its tour of New Zealand and there were no reports of in-fighting. Wasim Bari will select the best available team and then it will be up to the captain and the coach to get performance out of it.

The team will get a good deal of advice in the media and from ex-Test cricketers. This can sometimes be unsettling but this too is a part of pressure and if it's a settled team as against an insecure one, this advice can be ignored.

The team that has proved to be a huge disappointment has been the West Indies on its tour of South Africa. One catches glimpses of Viv Richards in the dressing-room. He is, of course the chairman of the selection committee. One wonders what must be going through his mind. He hasn't got too much hair left on his head but as he watches the fielding effort of his charges, the temptation must be there to pull out whatever hair remains.

When a team fields as atrociously as the West Indies did throughout the tour, it is an indication of a team that is in the pits. My grandson who is aged six, is beginning to show an interest in cricket and I have told his father that he should not be allowed to watch television when the West Indies are fielding or even bowling for that matter.

Every time has its highs and lows but the West Indies seem to lack any kind of fighting spirit. It is not simply a case of not knowing how to win but a case of accepting defeat as something pre-ordained. There have been flashes of batting brilliance but these have been too few.

South Africa, on the other hand, bears no resemblance to the team that toured Pakistan though the players are the same. It looked jaded in Pakistan but it is refreshed and the fielding is just out of this world. One can only conclude that they must have worked very hard at their game. It is a team that does its homework and very rarely one sees a player repeating a mistake. The only weakness in the team is the lack of a quality spinner. I am sure that they will come up with one.

Graeme Smith whose appointment as captain raised some eye-brows, looks to be firmly in command, a hands-on captain and when he is sitting in the dressing-room watches every ball that is being bowled. South Africa plays its cricket every bit as hard as does Australia. And it gets terrific crowd support. Considering that it has come out of a difficult history, it is wonderful to see both blacks and whites waving the national flag with pride.

My own memories of South Africa are fond ones. I went there soon after apartheid had been dismantled and the long, dark night had ended. Overnight, it seemed that a new nationalism had emerged and it showed in its cricket team. In many ways it reminded me of Pakistan's team in the 1950s, motivated by national pride, taking on all comers and wining against them at least once.

Something of that kind of spirit is needed now. Of course, times have changed and so has the game of cricket but if we bring that kind of resolve into our cricket thinking, then we would be on our way to becoming one of the world's best team instead of one that needs a considerable effort to play to our potential and then too we get distracted by personal feuds.

Still, the matches against India will be great contests and no one is in a position to make one or the other, the favourite. I think we will start even-Stevens and whoever holds its nerve will come out winner.