12 January 2005	Wednesday	01 Zilhaj 1425

The first leg of Pakistan's tour of Australia ended in Pakistan being whitewashed in all the Tests and the margins of defeat are so comprehensive that they would suggest that no sort of fight was given.

This is strictly not so. The younger and therefore, the less experienced players gave it their best shot and a few of them have emerged with their promise enhanced and no complaints about their performance.

It was the senior players including the captain who turned out to be such a disappointment. But they have smartly stayed behind to play the tri-series and sent home instead, at least three players, Danesh Kaneria, Asim Kamal and Mohammad Asif who had performed with a good deal of courage in the Sydney test match.

No one I have spoken to in Pakistan seems to know why these players have returned, the decision, apparently was taken by the team management in Australia and being on the spot, this team management knows what is best for Pakistan cricket.

That's all I wanted to write about the Test series but it appears that Bob Woolmer and Inzamamul Haq continue to give us the benefit of their wisdom. After the Sydney Test, Woolmer, who unlike all the other coaches is happy to wash the cricket team's dirty linen in public, made the astonishing revelation that Shoaib Akhtar was a shadow of his former self.

He chose not to say a word about the captain who had to sit out two of the three Tests because of a bad back and not a word about Abdul Razzak who was laid low with some mystery illness but has now been restored to full fitness.

Imran Khan who played such a large part in the development of Inzamam's career had until now only words of praise for him felt obliged to come out with stunning criticism and has called his captaincy "spineless". Inzamam responded with admitting that he was depressed on reading this.

What Imran was trying to say was that the captain should lead from the front and I was there in 1992 in Australia when he would take pain-killing injections to get himself fit. If he had to get on the field in crutches he would have done so.

He had a shoulder injury that was very painful but he not only stuck it out but also actually promoted himself in the batting order in the final, he batted at one-down. Inzamam was on that tour and was able to see at first hand that extra courage that a captain needs, both physical and moral courage.

The captain is a key player in the team. He is the one who sets an example, he is the one rallies his troops. To have a captain laid low with a somewhat vague back injury must have been demoralizing for the other members of the team.

Personally, I feel that Inzamam should have played or if that was impossible, he should have come home and if his back had been restored to normalcy, he could have joined the team for the tri-series.

In a way it would have sent a message to other players as well who may have been less inclined to get themselves unfit. There is far less pressure on the players for something like the VB series. It is a sort of fun-cricket and my own guess is that we won't get too many injuries.

The "mystery" illness of Razzak has been sorted out and if some news reports are to be believed, it was Razzak's addiction to spinach that caused him to have dizzy spells, not being a doctor, I have no idea that there is a connection.

I used to be an avid fan of comic strips and Popeye the Sailor used to be one of my favourites. Whenever Popeye felt that he needed super-human strength, he would pop some spinach in his mouth and was able to move mountains.

I would imagine that a lot of children were lured into eating spinach by Popeye. Razzak played for the Asia X1 in the world cricket appeal for tsunami victims but I hope he did not listen to the cricket commentators for they ribbed him mercilessly about spinach but behind the ribbing was a sharp criticism.

Somewhere the PCB will have to come out with some rules that deal with injuries particularly of the mental kind. If a player gets unfit and stays unfit for an indefinite period of time, he should be pulled out of the team. He should not be twice rewarded.

I had no problems with the appointment of Woolmer as coach. I had, in fact, welcomed it because, I felt, that he would bring a fresh mind to the job. But he gives me the impression that he is doing more talking (to the media) than coaching.

He is probably of the mind that Pakistan's cricket affairs have been out sourced to him. He needs to concentrate on his main job and so far, the results have been disappointing which is a polite way of saying that the only results have been a string of defeats when they have mattered most.

And first of all the PCB must not mince words and tell him loud and clear that he is not allowed to go to public in his criticism of Pakistan players. A word about the tsunami appeal match at Melbourne.

It was good to see the game of cricket claim the moral high ground. It was a wonderful match watched by 70, 000 at the MCG and millions on television and US$ 11 million was not a bad take for one day's work. A very proud moment for the cricket family.