December 25, 2005

BY the time the tour came to an end, the English camp made for a miserable sight. They lost the Test series 0-2 and the One Day contest 2-3. Statistics generally fail to show the actual quality of the contest, but in this case they are just about perfect; 0-2 and 2-3 just about sum it up all very well although 1-4 in the ODIs might have been a little closer to how it went.

The English players and the team management apparently thought they had conquered all that there was to be conquered after their Ashes elation. They found out the truth quite tragically at their own cost, but this should serve them well in their forthcoming tour to India.

All through the duration of the tour I have repeatedly made the point that the English losses had nothing to do with things on the field. The English disaster, if you ask me, had its roots more in the minds of the players than in playing skills and any man-to-man inferiority against Pakistan. Not even one of the three playing surfaces in Multan, Faisalabad and Lahore had anything to do with the results that they produced. Naturally, Pakistan was able to do what was required of it, and they did remarkably well, but it was England’s mental failure at critical times that brought their own downfall rather than Pakistani heroics.

That final day in Multan when England just needed to score something well under a couple of hundred runs but could not save itself from utter disgrace, was the defining moment. It had played the better cricket for four days and had set up the last day well, but fell at the last hurdle, and fell quite miserably in a heap. If it could have walked the cakewalk, the whole complexion of the series would have been different.

By the third Test, the English camp was so demoralized that even with three days still left, Duncan Fletcher, the English coach, was already talking to the media about why England was to be the losing side in the series! Michael Vaughan, the captain, was not far behind, telling everyone that he would go back home before the One Day part of the tour. It sounded as if he was taking his knee injury as a blessing in disguise! So much so that even Ian Botham, who was on the panel of television commentators, left the country prematurely to be at the bedside, of all the people, of his mother-in-law!

Before moving on, let’s touch this rather bizarre triangle involving Pakistan, Botham and his mother-in-law. In his playing days, he famously and publicly found Pakistan to be a country good enough for sending his mother-in-law. For whatever the remark was worth, it clearly reflected on his equation with her. This time, he left the country worried about the health of her mother-in-law, which sure is a reflection of the current status of that equation.

The dramatic turnaround makes me wonder if during all these years he has changed his opinion about Pakistan — for he came here himself instead of sending her — or he has changed his equation with his wife’s mother — because he felt so worried about her illness — or, better still, changed the mother-in-law herself!

I am not curious about his, or anyone else’s, personal life for that is none of my business, but Botham’s two utterances have been absolutely public, and that is a different matter altogether.

While Botham did return to his spot in the commentary box, Vaughan could not take his in the dressing room. In fact, he was joined by Ashley Giles and Kevin Pietersen in quick succession. All these were clear indications of a demoralized camp. The 2-3 One Day loss, as such, didn’t surprise anyone, not even the Englishmen themselves. In fact, they would not have been surprised even if it had been 1-4. So demoralized they were. Once they lost it in the head, things could not be any different on the field.

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