PAKISTAN cricket appears to be sinking at top international level with the team’s ouster from the World Cup a testament to this scenario.

Misbah-ul-Haq’s men stood nowhere in the quarter-final against a well-drilled Michael Clarke brigade and had a pumped-up Wahab Riaz not rattled the Aussies with his breathtaking pace, bounce and precision perhaps the contest would have been more asymmetrical.

Having only sneaked into the quarter-finals after winning the last pool game against Ireland, there was always a strong possibility of Pakistan flopping in the knockout stage. In the context of the World Cup also, Pakistan have declined having made the semi-finals in 2011.

In the rush of events leading up to the World Cup, except for a very few who had focused on the ground realities, millions of cricket-crazed fans in the country ended up expecting too much from their team.

With amateurish fielding, below club-level batting, illogical selection of playing XI and above all brushing aside merit at an event of the magnitude of the World Cup, how could Pakistan’s clueless cricketers be expected to win the game’s most coveted trophy in the presence of several much more equipped and fully trained raring-to-go outfits?

It gets even more shambolic with the head coach not even ‘aware’ (reportedly) of the batting traits of his squad’s specialist wicket-keeper who has been enjoying purple patch for the last six to seven months. Perhaps the management was ‘more aware’ of the qualities of Nasir Jamshed who kept on embarrassing himself and the team.

Will Waqar Younis, Moin Khan and Misbah agree to this: if Sarfraz Ahmed had played right from the beginning, or at least after the first pool game, he might have adjusted better to the extra bounce on Australian wickets, and could have avoided his dismissal on a rising ball in the quarter-final. Younis Khan’s absurd utilisation in the opener and then ouster from the playing XI and Yasir Shah warming the bench after the India game were as irksome as anything.

Batting has been Pakistan’s nuisance since primordial times, and yet again it caused the bummer. Wasim Akram, after the Adelaide quarter-final rightly pinpointed the basic lacking among our batsmen.

“There was a plan but when things went against them, Pakistan batsmen were all over,” the fast bowling great said on STAR Sports.

Does Pakistan possess the class of David Warner, Glenn Maxwell, Steve Smith, Hashim Amla, A.B. de Villiers, Brendon McCullum, Kane Williamson, Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan?

Even Martin Guptill — not listed among the greats of the game — walloped a record 237 in the semi-final against the West Indies whereas Pakistan’s entire eleven could put together a scanty 213 against Australia. South Africa and Australia smashed 400-plus totals in this World Cup while on the other hand, Pakistan wilted against India (224) and the West Indies (160), and accumulated 235 against Zimbabwe. There is a world of difference in the batting standards of Pakistan and the top teams.

More importantly, did Pakistan’s think-tank, in the last four years, at least try to nurture at least a couple of young batsmen, if not more, matching the mastery of the best in business? Was merit not compromised on many occasions during this period while the likes of Sarfraz and Haris Sohail were kept away? What has the National Cricket Academy (NCA) been doing to rectify the young batsmen’s flaws? Would anywhere in the world an ever-restless Umar Akmal have survived his batting blunders for as many as 111 ODIs? Needless to say, his glovework was way too awful. Did anyone urge Ahmed Shehzad to use his feet on bouncy Australian tracks, and if yes, did he follow it particularly against top teams?

Shahid Afridi was completely off-colour throughout the mega event, and when he had a golden chance to steer his team out of trouble in the semi-final, there came that Afridi-specific mindless stroke and Pakistan innings — and his ODI career — ended in a crash. With the senior-most campaigner of the team having this level of responsibility in the all-important World Cup certainly sets a very wrong example for others, particularly juniors.

Misbah’s ODI job and his last innings, unfortunately, ended on a losing note. The Pakistan captain — who performed his task at the helm with dignity and responsibility under extreme pressure — deserved a much better deal.

As regards fielding, it now feels that the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and selectors would have to revise the criterion for selection. Rahat Ali, who did pretty well with the ball, would hate to watch highlights of the Adelaide semi-final, while the fired-up Sohail Khan looked novice as a fielder on several occasions in the World Cup.

Despite an unusually drawn-out contest, it is good for the sport that four deserving teams have made the semi-finals.

Let us face it: Pakistan were never prepared for the World Cup. Thoughtless, undeserving selection of players time and again in the lead-up did not allow the team to settle for high-pressure encounters where our players couldn’t match their opponents.

The PCB officialdom, including the selectors, must sit down and do some genuine soul-searching. If they don’t, and raise the same old slogans like “we are satisfied with the team’s performance”, “our target is the next World Cup”, “there are a lot of positives”, and “these are our players”, then it will surely endorse that their time is over. Millions of ardent fans from Karachi to Khyber wouldn’t allow them to sink the ship of Pakistan cricket.

Published in Dawn March 23rd , 2015

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