Only recently we discussed how tough it is these days for visiting teams to win in conditions that are different from what they experience in the comfort of their homes. Most visitors end up on the losing side … England in Australia, India in South Africa and even Sri Lanka in Bangladesh where conditions are not too different for the visitors. So, Pakistan’s loss in New Zealand needs to be seen in that context. Right? Wrong! And here is why it is so horribly wrong.
Historically speaking, playing away from home has always been tough, but it is getting tougher because, among other things, the skill set of modern cricketers is below par. The tours are getting shorter and focus almost entirely on international commitments without much exposure to competitive conditions in the shape of domestic sides.
If you are good against pace, you have little time to work out your issues against the spinning ball. Australia’s Usman Khwaja is a case in point. And vice versa. Things got even worse with Twenty20 leagues which have left the international calendar rather crammed for even international assignments. T20 is where the money is and success on that front means much more to professionals (Chris Gayle and his ilk) and the young get easily fascinated by those who chance their arms rather than plan their innings — Shahid Afridi over Younis Khan, for instance.
There is a vital difference between Pakistan’s recent issues in New Zealand and defeats inflicted on most teams playing away from home.
All this means international assignments away from home are tricky and getting trickier. But there is a difference between a loss and an embarrassment. And this is what separates Pakistan’s performance in New Zealand from, say, India’s performance in South Africa. The sheer magnitude of the sustained loss and the utter ineptitude of the whole unit puts into perspective why we, as a nation, celebrate the way we celebrate every time the team wins. It is because meaningful victories are so rare and even when they come, they come against the run of play.
The West Indians treaded this very path with gay abandon for too long and have ended up in what looks like a blind alley running right into a dead end. Even their victories don’t excite the nation anymore. The world has all but given up on the hope of ever watching a West Indian U-turn because they didn’t do what was needed to stem the rot when it was setting in. And did too little too late when they finally woke up to the challenge.
In many ways, we are doing just that. Coach Mickey Arthur was perfect in his assessment that the batting line-up was “not doing the job.” He could not have been more truthful. The only problem is that he is the one whose job it is to make things work. And, just for the record, it happens to be a paid job. A very lucrative one.
Everyone knows what the problem is. Just a glimpse at social media websites and reader feedback on news websites is enough to be sure that the reason of the failure is known to everyone and their dogs. But they — everyone … and their dogs — are not supposed to fix the problem. It is Mickey’s job to do it. All he had to say in that regard was that Pakistan “will have to reassess the game plan ahead of next year’s World Cup in England.” Yes, indeed. But such a bland, innocuous and evasive statement could have been issued by the public relations machinery of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) or by some local coach. Why do we need an alien munching on the country’s foreign exchange reserves to do what could have been done locally at a fraction of a cost? As for the result, Mickey is not producing anything worthwhile with any degree of consistency. And what he is producing can be produced without him. In fact, it can be produced without any coach at all. We don’t even need a PCB for such embarrassments.
Many would fail to resist the temptation of recalling the Champions Trophy miracle in England, just six months ago, to suggest that the loss in New Zealand is part of some ongoing process of reviving the team’s fortunes on a long-term basis. Mickey did it in public and used it to defend himself.
Here is what he said: “Every time we bring young boys in, they stand up. They did it at the Champions Trophy for us. When Fakhar Zaman walked in, he changed the tempo in the Champions Trophy, playing fearless cricket. Shadab Khan, Faheem Ashraf, these are the guys who would do anything for you … our blueprint that we had was good enough to win us the Champions Trophy, it was good enough to win nine ODIs in a row. We haven’t adapted well and haven’t played well enough. But the blueprint for us still remains the same, but obviously personnel changes could happen.”
The blueprint he is so infatuated with and is talking so animatedly of actually appears to be what we have been doing all along: Go out and have fun. If it comes off, great. If it doesn’t come off, it doesn’t come off. This is how we had won the 1992 World Cup. This is how we won the 2017 Champions Trophy. And this is how we might as well lift the World Cup in 2019. It will be just an extension of the blueprint that the Pakistani team has always followed and which the Pakistani nation has come to take pride in under the ‘cornered tiger’ mentality.
The simple fact is that we are tempting fate a little too frequently and giving no weight at all to the West Indian fall from grace. Closer to home — in fact, right at home — we are ignoring our own fall from grace in hockey. For Mickey Arthur, it is just another job. It is up to us to see where we are headed … and why.
Published in Dawn, EOS, January 28th, 2018
Dear visitor, the comments section is undergoing an overhaul and will return soon.