June 30, 2002

THE way the Pakistanis turned the tables on the Australians must have given much heart to all concerned. And why not? After a pretty ordinary performance in the first of the three encounters, the team roared back in the last two games and outthought and outplayed what is generally considered an invincible outfit. Well done, boys. Keep it up!

It was, indeed, heartening to see Shoaib Akhtar perform the way he did, taking the Australian juggernaut by the scruff of its neck, and giving it a long overdue hammering. Interestingly, his Australian rival, Brett Lee, came nowhere near the level of consistent destruction that Shoaib caused, and that says a lot about the latter’s mental capacity to perform under pressure. He had a lot to prove, and he came out flying. It was in the fitness of things that Shoaib was named the Man of the Series.

One person to have felt much more pride than Shoaib and his teammates would have been Tauqir Zia, the head of Pakistan Cricket Board, and rightly so. He was the one who kept faith with Shoaib Akhtar even when the chips were down. Just recall Shoaib’s status a couple of years ago. He was in all kinds of troubles. He had injuries; was called for alleged chucking; and was down in the dumps as far as self-confidence was concerned. To add to his troubles, he was struggling to keep up with all this pressure, and was having confrontations with the media and his own colleagues in the national team. There were many who were willing to write him off for good.

The PCB boss was the lone exception. He treated him as a national asset, spending official resources to get him back to full fitness and to improve his bowling rhythm. On another front, he got him cleared of the chucking allegations, and took on the ICC. It was a long process, and a very uncertain one, too. But he believed he had the right cards and played them well. Pakistan cricket, Shoaib in particular, owes a lot to the PCB boss.

Another player who had a point to prove was Wasim Akram, and he did it in style. Wasim, it appears, has a knack of proving his detractors wrong, and he apparently takes much joy in doing that time and time again. His determination on the field and his commitment to the team’s cause are a joy to watch for us all, and a trait to emulate for the juniors in the side. That Wasim is still a part of the national team is as much because of his talent and tenacity as it is due to the foresight displayed by the PCB boss.

It is beyond doubt that Tauqir Zia assessed Wsaim’s capacity to continue delivering the goods much better than did most media gurus, who were only too eager to force him into premature retirement. If Pakistan has any hopes of doing well at the World Cup next year, it is because of the bowling resources, and just imagine what our bowling would have been like today had we done away with Shoaib and Wasim as was being suggested by many in the last couple of years.

The batting, for sure, is our weak point, and it was abundantly clear during the Australian outing. In the second match, there was only a paltry score to cross, but the team made a heavy weather of it. In the last match, the boys failed to take advantage of a bright start, and it was Wasim’s final flurry with the bat that gave the team something to bowl against. The problem with the batting is that it is not as weak and fragile as it is uncertain. It is certainly not the ideal recipe while preparing to lock horns with the best in the world. With months to go before the World Cup gets under way, it is time to do something about .

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