October 02, 2007	Tuesday	Ramazan 19, 1428

The heart-breaking track prepared for the first Test at Karachi’s National Stadium once again highlights the great reluctance of the mandarins of Pakistan cricket to think positive.

Surely, they have not learned their lesson from the two largely contrasting World Cup campaigns this year – the shameful exit in the Caribbeans last March followed by a lion-hearted stint at the World Twenty20 in South Africa. Or why else would they order a featherbed for the series opener that would sink the hearts of players and fans alike as well as revive the long, suffering years of many a wonderful bowlers who played in the region over some five decades?

Who can ever forget the mauling of the great Dennis Lillee at Faisalabad at the hands of a moderately-talented Taslim Arif in 1980 and how it prompted the legendary Aussie bowler to say that only his burial at the ground could bring the lifeless track alive?

More importantly, our own cricketing champion Imran Khan lost his shin and peak years in his career to a Herculean effort against India in 1983. Of course, the same death-strips gifted the Sultan of Swing Waqar Younis with a stress fracture on the eve of the 1992 World Cup and, more recently, rendered the hugely-talented Umar Gul scarred and indisposed on a crucial tour of South Africa in 2006.

Numerous such examples may well run shivers down the spines of us ordinary mortals. The administrators of cricket, however, are made of sterner stuff. To their credit, they have perfectly immunized themselves from all such humanly feelings while the team earns ‘lions at home, lambs abroad’ tag with each away-tour flop.

The views of the cricket-manning officials continue to be drastically different from that of the players and spectators. They obviously loathe parting with the tradition of ‘safeguarding’ the home side at the expense of the game itself.

It is not as if the debate over the ‘pitch’ issue has been less heated or furore feeble. Much emphasis has been placed over the past decades on the threat of poor pitches and how they are killing the ‘horses’ or the bowlers in Pakistan cricket.

In fact, the cremation of Inzamam-ul-Haq’s army at the hands of minnows Ireland in the World Cup drew pledges of 200 sporting pitches around the country from the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) officials. Yet, there’s an inevitability to this scenario that continues to haunt the purists besides discouraging the straggling spectators.

Monday, of course, was no different. All the South African batsmen – Smith, Kallis, Gibbs, Amla – looked in absolute control, never experiencing the slightest of discomforts at the crease, even when playing cross-batted drives. Not only Asif and Gul but the spinning duo of Kaneria and Rehman have toiled hard, and in vain. There was nothing that could restore them as ‘drawcards’ on a batsmen’s paradise on a lop-sided first day.

The pain, indeed, gets compounded when one recalls the build-up to this series. It was barely a few days ago when Shoaib Malik and company’s brilliant Twenty20 campaign in South Africa was hailed as a definite resurgence of Pakistan cricket after a turbulent period of almost two years. It was, indeed, a moment of pride which was to be cherished for sometime to come, the cornerstone for an impregnable unit in the making.

After a dismal Monday at the National Stadium, however, the heads have hung low and the hopes are not too high. Indeed, the first day of the first Test has come as an embarrassing demise of the euphoria which so gripped the nation during the Twenty20 contest.

The Karachi Test, rather than being a game full of expectations, varied skills and sporting combat, has been reduced to a farce, already. It is overwhelmingly seen from here as the better of exchanges for batsmen with bowlers compelled to toe a policy of containment as they are left to haplessly dawdle through their overs.

That said, the harrowing trait of our batsmen to shoot themselves in the feet still imperils the outcome of this otherwise dreary contest, even on a brown, true pitch.

As a point of interest, one would always like to know about the culprit who masterminds such a project or track. But whoever he may be on this occasion, he has sufficiently ensured that the two-Test series is an undiluted disaster for the pacers, an experience unlikely to foster liberal attitudes in future. God help Sohail Tanvir.

The question is: for how long can one take such absurdity, such harshness in stride? No. The Karachi pitch must not be taken as just another bitter setback, another sad blow to be survived. One should not be left to only appreciate the little things that flicker across the scene on a dull day and not the bigger factors that make cricket a game of glorious uncertainties. The negative trends must be altered, especially when things are looking up for Pakistan cricket.

Clearly, it will be impossible to overhaul the entire concept and infrastructure of wicket-laying in this region, particularly keeping in mind the ‘safeguarding formula’ that is so well-entrenched in the minds of our cricket administrators.

But at the very least, there should be a cast iron agreement in place to ensure qualified curators often get invited for laying sporting tracks in the country, heavy rollers are dispensed with for good while enough grass is kept on for the bowlers to get some sort of kick out of the strip.

That the administrators will never allow any such recommendation to become a law is a given. But if it as much as elevates the Tests at home from being unspectacular to exciting, the effort will be worth its weight in gold; akin to conquering the world.