NOT many would be interested, and understandably so, in what is happening in the triangular contest in England involving, in addition to the hosts, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Basically, an overdose of one-dayers is to be blamed, but the fact that one’s own team is no more among the leading sides in the world does not help the matter either.
The performance of one’s own team, the national team of course, is vital to sustain the interest of the people in the game. When the performance graph is on a downward slide, which unfortunately is the case with the current side, people just don’t feel like getting associated with the game.
The first stage of the alienation process generally involves people always finding something better to do than to watch the games that do not feature their own team. In the second stage, they stop following the game even when the national team is playing, and when this happens, the third and the final stage does not take long in coming, and this represents total alienation when people stop bothering at all about the game.
I concede that there may be some who might have doubts in this regard, but the example of Pakistan Hockey is right in front of us. Ever since the national team stopped clinching titles on the international stage, the glory days have never returned. A vicious cycle has set in where the game cannot be promoted in the country without the team improving the performance that would generate grassroots interest; and the performance of the national team cannot be improved because fresh talent is not coming through the ranks. And not many are particularly bothered by the proceedings. Unfortunately, the same applies to Pakistan Squash.
My fear is that the game of cricket in the country may soon see the same rot setting in if corrective steps are not taken, and this, may I say it again, includes asking individuals holding key positions in the new setup to shut up and concentrate on the job. But more on this specific issue next week. For the moment, I wish to get back to the England-Zimbabwe encounter, because it carries a lot of local relevance.
Bangladesh is the only side in the Test league against whom the Zimbabweans start out as favourites. Against all others, and there are eight of them, they remain the underdogs. This has been their status in the league for well over a decade, and there is no positive hope for the foreseeable future. Their recent win against England, as such, is an indication of the low strength of the new-look English One-Dy side that features a lot of fresh faces, and whose captain also happens to be a raw hand.
The Zimbabwean victory over England, and, indeed, its early heroics in the game that was washed out, puts into perspective the performance that was delivered by Pakistan against England recently when they lost it 1-2. It clearly puts to rest the euphoria that some had tried to generate simply because the team had not lost it 0-3!
The whole euphoria was based on a single claim that the result was good enough to register for a ‘young’ team in a country like England. There are two points I wish to raise. One, the team is not as young as it is made out to be. Two, Zimbabwe also features a lot of fresh faces in the wake of what happened to the team on and off the field after the World Cup.
Just a quick look at the national side that took the field in England is enough to betray the truth behind the element of youth in the ranks. Pakistan, mind you, fielded an almost identical side in the three matches.
Yousuf Youhanna, Yunus Khan, Azhar Mahmood, Abdul Razzaq, Rashid Latif and Shoaib Akhtar, all of six of them have years of international cricket and a load of One Day games behind them. Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Sami and Imran Nazir have been in and out of the team for a long time, and are no new-comers. All these nine players took the field for Pakistan in the three matches, with the exception of Shoaib Akhtar, who had to miss out on the first one on account of suspension. If this is the kind of ‘new’ beginning the PCB has in mind, we will have to go and find our prayer mats!
NOT many would be interested, and understandably so, in what is happening in the triangular contest in England involving, in addition to the hosts, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Basically, an overdose of one-dayers is to be blamed, but the fact that one’s own team is no more among the leading sides in the world does not help the matter either.
