THE first time I saw a Pakistani player bowing down in gratitude to the All Mighty and kissing the pitch was Tauseef Ahmed after he took the last Indian wicket to fall in the famous Bangalore victory of 1987.

The next such memory is from the World Cup 1992 when Javed Miandad’s emotions got the better of him after Pakistan had won a semi-final for the first time in 4 attempts.

I also remember Miandad completing his 50 during the tense run-chase scrambling for a second run and the celebration was nothing more than a muted acknowledgement to the crowd or his team mates by raising his bat.

He could not afford to do more than that; after all, there was a job still to be done, a task yet to be completed.

How could he rejoice at a personal milestone which might not have meant anything had Pakistan not pulled off that incredible chase?

Fast forward to today where it is customary for the Pakistani players to publicly express their gratitude to the All Mighty on achieving a personal milestone regardless of the match situation.

We had Wahab Riaz prostrating after his five-for against India at the 2011 World Cup semi-final, we had Sohail Khan doing a similar act exactly 4 years later against the same opposition and we had Hassan Ali performing sajdah in Sydney when the Australian score was already in excess of 350 during the 2016-17 bilateral series, just to mention a few occasions out of probably hundreds.

In the recently-concluded One-Day International (ODI) series against Australia, we saw debutant Abid Ali bowing down after scoring his maiden ton against Australia in the 4th ODI. Not long after, he was back in the pavilion playing an ungainly shot when all he needed to do as a well-set batsman was to stay in the middle and see his side home. Pakistan went on to lose the match by six runs.

In fact, Pakistani batsmen scored as many as 5 centuries during the series but could not win a single match for their team.

We often wonder why our team has been struggling at the international level, despite having abundance of talent and all the facilities that modern players require. In fact, when we sit down to list down the possible World Cup 15, most of the players select themselves, such is the strength of their individual performances.

But how many of them have won important matches for Pakistan? Difficult to recall.

This is where the dilemma lies; despite the talent and the numbers, these players are found wanting when it comes to reading match situations. I have grown up watching the likes of Javed Miandad, Saleem Malik and Inzamam-ul-Haq, players who would pace their innings so impeccably and control a chase with such mastery that it would leave the other team scratching their heads.

They would seem to know the number of overs left to be bowled by each bowler, including those to be bowled by the part timers or the weak links, would rotate or farm the strike depending upon the partners they would be left with and would generally finish matches.

It is perhaps unfair to criticise the current players as giving them the right orientation is the job of the coaches and management.

Players also learn this art through the rigorous grind of domestic cricket; however, in Pakistan, most of the players — even in the Test team — are selected based on one good season of Pakistan Super League (PSL) and hence have limited experience of coping in such situations.

Ironically, Pakistan boasts of several world record holders in its ranks. Batsman Asad Shafiq has scored the most number of Test centuries batting at No. 6 position, more than Sir Garfield Sobers; Yasir Shah is the fastest to get to 200 Test wickets; Fakhar Zaman is the quickest to reach 1000 ODI runs and has a career average of 50+ including a double century, Azhar Ali is among a handful of triple-century makers in Test cricket, Younis Khan is among a very few to reach the coveted milestone of 10,000 Test runs and Misbah-ul-Haq briefly held the record of the fastest century in Test cricket.

Paceman Hassan Ali has already achieved the No. 1 ranking in ODI cricket in his short career. Despite such stellar performances, Pakistan cricket team finds itself languishing at the bottom half of the International Cricket Council (ICC) rankings — No. 7 in Test cricket and No. 6 in ODIs.

What must be understood is that individual performances count for nothing if these do not contribute to the team’s cause. The public show of gratitude to the All Mighty and the standing ovation by those watching from the team’s balcony regardless of the match situation gives a wrong message; a message that individual performances are somehow greater than the team’s cause.

For example, Asad Shafiq’s valiant effort at Brisbane in 2016-17 was celebrated by cutting a cake in the team’s dressing room as if Pakistan had won the match.

A counter example is the Leeds Test of 1987 where in difficult conditions, Saleem Malik was the only Pakistani batsman to hold his own and score a masterful 99; yet he was reportedly admonished by Imran Khan when he got dismissed at the stroke of stumps as the captain expected him – being the only batsman who had adapted to the conditions – to stay till the close of play. Such expectations make a player raise the bar and perform even better going forward.

It should be remembered that Miandad’s primary claim to fame is the last-ball six at Sharjah and not the world record 9 consecutive half-centuries in ODIs. Imran Khan is best remembered as the World Cup-winning captain and not the world-class allrounder that he undoubtedly was. Wasim Akram is loved for the two magical deliveries that won his team the World Cup final and not the 500 wickets that he otherwise took in a glittering ODI career; Inzamam-ul-Haq is still revered for his 37-ball 60 in the semi-final of the same tournament and the returning Mohammad Amir only got redemption after he burst through the Indian batting line-up in the Champions Trophy final. The most talked about achievement of Shahid Afridi — world record-holder of the maximum number of sixes in ODIs — are the two last-over sixes off R Ashwin which even made it to a Bollywood movie.

The point is, it is the match-winning performances on big occasions and not the number of hundreds or five-fors that are remembered by the fans. The team needs leadership that can instil in them situational awareness and the art of winning important matches. That is why it might not be a bad idea to think about giving reins to someone like Javed Miandad — someone with a proven track record in such situations — especially with the World Cup fast approaching.

The players need to be told that trying is not good enough; winning is what matters. It might sound harsh but is the only way to make the individual performances count.

Email: syed.mustafa@hotmail.com
Twitter: MustafaFairplay

Published in Dawn, April 3rd, 2019