THROUGH THE COVERS: A bad start, but miles yet to go
By Zaheer Abbas
THESE are early days at the World Cup in South Africa, but there have already been a few sparkles on and off the field. The Shane Warne incident was as explosive, if not more, as the opening game between South Africa and West Indies. With the kind of rattling start that the Cup has had, there are bound to be a lot more crackers on the card.
The New Zealanders were already talking of a possible reconsideration of their stand to stay away from their match in Kenya after they lost their opening game against the Sri Lankans. Now that they have beaten West Indies, they will perhaps stick to the original decision.
But there is nothing more worthy of our discussion today than the decimation of Pakistan at the hands of an under-strength but still mighty Australians. This was the first game in the World Cup for both the teams, and, perhaps, it was in memory of their last encounter at the World Cup with Australia that the Pakistanis once again made it come out as a damp squib as against its billing of a real tussle.
And once again Pakistanis have to blame themselves for the defeat. I know the World Cup is not over for the team, and, in any case, it is not the end of the world, and that there is life beyond a World Cup loss, but to lose tough and key matches from a winning position with an unfortunate degree of consistency is something not many teams can do as well as Pakistan does.
For the last several days, we were being told through media reports, interviews and press releases that the boys were all geared up and that everyone wanted to put in their best and make it big. If this was their best, I am sorry, I don’t see them going too far in this competition. I know I am sticking my neck out rather unnecessarily at this early stage of the competition, but the team showed a level of slackness and an almost complete absence of any serious game-plan that together suggest that all is not well with the national team’s preparation.
If you have Australia on the back foot with four wickets down well under the hundred-run mark, you go for the kill, and not on the defensive which is what Pakistan actually did, and thereby allowed Ricky Ponting and Andrew Symmonds to have a partnership going that, in the final analysis, did Pakistan in.
Then, with having to chase a mammoth total at an asking rate of more than six even at the start of the innings, it was criminal to send Shahid Afridi at the top of the order and to expect him to play a blazing knock against the likes of Glen McGrath and Jason Gillespie. The team management should have known that the Australians did their homework on Afridi long time ago, and, barring a miracle, he is not going to deliver against the Australians while playing at the top of the order. And, if the team management was hoping for miracles at the very beginning of the innings, it can hardly be called a professional approach. Afridi could have made a difference against the likes of Harvey, Hogg, and maybe against Lee, but McGrath and Gillespie have too much guile to allow any room to Afridi. The player is not at fault. The coach and the team think-tank definitely are.
I regret that the team’s inept performance has taken so much space that I have almost no space to talk about the wonderful performance put in by the West Indians in their opening game. It was heartening, to say the least. A West Indian victory is always a victory of the game itself. May they go far this time.
THESE are early days at the World Cup in South Africa, but there have already been a few sparkles on and off the field. The Shane Warne incident was as explosive, if not more, as the opening game between South Africa and West Indies. With the kind of rattling start that the Cup has had, there are bound to be a lot more crackers on the card.
