The recently concluded Test and One-Day series between the arch rivals, after taking numerous twists and turns, ended in disappointment for the home team. The batting superiority of the visitors was never in doubt and pitted against their top six batsmen, there were only two from our side. The over rated Pakistani pace attack failed to deliver whereas the Indian seamers did a far better job by bowling between the wickets and sticking to their game plan.
Amongst our bowlers, only Umar Gul at Lahore showed the virtues of bowling between the stumps and to a line and length. Shoaib Akhtar got only seven wickets in the series whereas Sami was another disappointment. Sheer speed without any direction is absolute nonsense and Shoaib has learnt nothing over the years. Sami would do well to take it as a wake up call.
Australia and India are the two best teams at present and they don’t carry any passengers. Pakistan should take a cue and barring the captain there should be no reserved berth for any one. Each cricketer must perform to get into the team and to retain his place. In other words he must earn his keep. This will ensure not only optimum performance but will also minimize the chances of match fixing.
The first three One Dayers went to the wire and it was cricket at its exhilarating best. However, a question hangs over the fourth and fifth matches. When Rashid Latif alleged that the fourth ODI was fixed, the PCB in a knee jerk reaction referred his case for disciplinary action.
Rashid is a person with impeccable integrity. He is the one who blew the whistle in the first place. In fact, he also maintains a web site on match fixing and has put his career online for his beliefs and to eliminate the curse. It may be recalled that Rashid was once instrumental in upsetting a fixed match by playing a responsible innings and helped Pakistan clinch victory. The mafia was upset, and subsequently kidnapped the father of the Pakistan captain as the deal had fallen through. Rashid knows all about match fixing and should be taken seriously. He spoke of ‘grand’ match fixing whereby one team maintains a run rate of ten in the fourth ODI.
It may be recalled that India maintained an average of ten in the first fifteen overs in spite of losing wickets at regular intervals, while Pakistan was going at an average of four during the same period. It is indeed food for thought.
Moreover, when Youhana offered his pad plumb in front of the wicket to make the side two for nine, it certainly seemed very odd. To recover from such a position in a short span of overs seems a daunting task. Match fixing is basically of two types. One version is the ‘grand’ fixing referred to by Rashid and another frequently used method is to ‘buy’ two or three leading cricketers.
Yasir Hameed’s dismissal in the fifth ODI raised a lot of eyebrows. A batsman who had performed consistently in four matches committed suicide in the initial stage of the innings by flashing across the line of the ball with his head high in the air. Such atrocious shots are not even attempted at the club level, much less in the final of the One Dayers. This dismissal and that of Youhana in the previous match seemed intriguing. What lent greater credibility to the purported fixing of the fourth and fifth matches was that the outcome was known to a lot of people prior to the matches. Those with connections with the bookies passed on the information to others and the word spread like wildfire. Consequently some staunch Pakistani supporters did not even watch the last two matches. Probably never before in the annals of the game has the outcome of matches been predicted so correctly prior to commencement of the game.
When Imran Khan was the captain no player could dare to think of match fixing as he would have been immediately thrown out of the team and that would have been the end of his career. It was after his retirement that match fixing came into our cricket and came in a big way. The cricket authorities should have taken stern action instead of brushing the dirt under the carpet.
Now it is a cancer. Lie detector tests are used as credible evidence in the West and the same should be applied in all suspicious instances of the present and the past. The cancer should be cleansed off in toto and all the concerned players should be exposed. Half baked measures will not do.
The entire Test series was extremely one sided and there was not even a semblance of contest. India won the first and last Test by thumping margins whereas Pakistan romped home comfortably in the second Test. At Multan a green top wicket had been shaved off and when Imran Khan thundered that the captain and the coach had to accept responsibility, a meek official version was given that it was done at Youhana’s behest after he had prevailed upon his team mates. This was a classical example of making a scapegoat. Youhana is a docile person and is most unlikely to have prevailed upon his team mates on such an issue. Miandad denied that he had anything to do with it whereas Inzamam lambasted the curator. Clearly the curator could not have acted on his own and if the three above named persons had nothing to with it the finger points towards the administrator of the game.
The entire Test series was marred by several horrendous decisions given by purportedly the best umpires in the game. Such jarring decisions vitiate the spirit of the game altering the entire course of the match. No individual is above the game and when technology is available, full use must be made of it so as to impart correct decisions. It is only logical that all decisions should be referred to the third umpire. It is high time that the job of the field umpires is reduced to adjudging wides and no balls only. The PCB in consort with the ICC must seriously think along these lines.
The recently concluded Test and One-Day series between the arch rivals, after taking numerous twists and turns, ended in disappointment for the home team. The batting superiority of the visitors was never in doubt and pitted against their top six batsmen, there were only two from our side. The over rated Pakistani pace attack failed to deliver whereas the Indian seamers did a far better job by bowling between the wickets and sticking to their game plan.
