August 25, 2002

THERE came Morocco and there it went, taking the Pakistani dream away with it. But Pakistanis themselves stand to take the entire blame for putting up such an insipid performance, especially when every One Day game they play these days is taken as part of their overall preparation for the forthcoming World Cup, which is just months away. It is, indeed, a great loss of face and morale for the players, and they will have to do something special in the two assignments ahead: the Kenya event and then the ICC Trophy in Colombo.

It is not just the string of defeats that would derail the preparations as much as would the manner in which they came about. Almost every match that they lost — and they lost three out of the four that they played during the competition — they had it covered before losing it almost from nowhere. This is this patchy performance that casts lingering doubts in the minds of the players themselves, and affect their performance in future assignments.

Take the last match against the South Africans, which was the do-or-die battle for the Pakistanis. Having sent five of their top six batsmen back to the pavilion with a mere fifty-odd runs on the board, Pakistanis surprised everyone by letting the South Africans off the hook, and allowing them to play out their full fifty-over quota and manage a shade under two hundred runs. That still did not appear to be good enough, but at least gave the South Africans something to defend and keep their hopes alive. As the drama unfolded, even that meagre total was eight runs too many for the Pakistanis who had such a deep batting line-up that Wasim Akram was placed at the tenth position.

Then, with Shahid Afridi coming good — for a change, perhaps — Shoaib Malik just failed to keep the momentum going, something he could have easily done by taking singles. But he was not able to do even that. His run out, in fact, was a blessing in disguise for the Pakistanis, because the fall of his wicket brought Yousuf Youhanna to the crease, and the partnership between Afridi and Youhanna was the brightest spot during that Pakistan innings when it looked that the team might clinch not just a victory but the crucial bonus point as well which would have given them a much greater chance of qualifying for the final. That they failed to capitalize on that momentum was unfortunate.

Once Afridi was gone, Pakistanis, it appeared, gave up any hope of that precious bonus point, and concentrated on consolidating their position to go for a simple victory. That, indeed, was negative thinking and the team had to pay the penalty. As it happens so often, Pakistanis went flat during the middle of the innings, and found themselves under unnecessary pressure when wickets started to tumble.

Consolidation during the middle of the innings does not mean going flat in the crucial phase. The middle overs represent a period to prepare for the final onslaught. And you cannot suddenly launch an attack if you had been sleeping right there on the track for, say, twenty, twenty-five overs. It takes time to shift gears, and one has to be in the right frame of mind to do that. Pakistanis have this basic flaw in their approach towards the One Day game. When they are able to save wickets, they tend to go berserk towards the end, and look good. But it does not always happen, and once they lose a few wickets after spending twenty flat overs, the panic sets in, and then they don’t look that good.

Before I finish, just one more thing: whose idea is it to use Shoaib Malik as a regular batsman in the side? Give us a break, please.

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