March 27, 2005

AS I write these lines, the third Test has just started and has already taken the path that is now so consistently associated with a Pakistan innings. Captain Inzamamul Haq and his deputy Younus Khan are doing their best to control the damage, and have done well. There is a lot of cricket to be played between now and Sunday, and I hope Pakistan will be able to pull its act together. The massive defeat at Kolkata is still ringing in the ears, and a setback in Bangalore will dampen the spirits that much more.

The Kolkata disaster was simply an extension of the trend that has unfortunately set in over the last few years, and seems to be quite well entrenched by now. Even worse is the fear that things appear unlikely to change in the near future because there is no dearth of statements coming out from officials that they are satisfied with the overall direction of the team’s progress. They all try to portray the losses as one-off cases. The simple and incontestable fact is that there have been way more losses than drawn games and victories for Pakistan in the last year or so. This naturally means that losing is fast becoming an unfortunate habit with the team and the team management. All the bravado coming out from PCB only adds insult to injury.

I call it bravado, because it suggests that those concerned know what is going on, but prefer to issue statements to the contrary to keep public morale high. If it is not bravado, I am afraid it would suggest failure on the part of the officials to even have an idea about what is going on.

Honestly, I believe that the PCB knows fully well what it is up against. It is trying to be patient with the hi-tech coach, giving him all the time to do something more concrete and tangible. But the coach, on his part, has done precious little, if anything, except writing columns, giving interviews and issuing statements to the effect that nothing bothers him at all; that he is not responsible for the debacles; and that the players need to be physically and mentally fit to do the fight out in the middle; and that there are people who criticize him unnecessarily even though the PCB is supposedly satisfied with his performance. What sometimes surprises me more than the audacity and temerity of the coach is the reluctance and timidity being shown by his bosses in making him shut up and concentrate on the job.

What perhaps saves the skin of the coach every now and then is the team’s much better performance in the one-day version of the game. It happened in Australia recently, and there is every likelihood of it happening yet again in India at the end of the Test series. I have heard of public memory being short, but I would expect a better effort on the part of the PCB, with all the statistical data that is generated, kept and updated so painstakingly. The team has always been performing reasonably well in the ODIs, barring the World Cup fiasco, and that equation has not changed much. If the World Cup were to be held today, the team is not going to win it; not by some distance.

The team’s basic problem was lack of consistency. They could beat any side one day, and lose out to some under-strength outfit the very next day. This is what the coach was supposed to be working on, and he has done a mind-boggling job of it. The team has now become much more consistent in the sense that it has now become a bunch of consistent losers at the Test level. It either loses or strives to wriggle out of tight corners where it finds itself stranded on a consistent basis. I fail to remember the last time the team under the current coach took the initiative and drove that advantage home. I am absolutely certain that the PCB didn’t have this kind of consistency in mind when it went on that ill-advised hiring spree.

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