After generations of greats, this Pak team lacks aura

MoM Jasprit Bumrah. Courtesy: @ ICC 2023 

 
FAR removed from the World Cup, a retired Israeli General, Israel Ziv, showed the commitment which can make the difference between saving/losing lives.

In the context of cricket, such commitment would make the difference between winning/losing.

It’s about responding to a crisis in a manner which is effective and inspirational.

For General Ziv’s extraordinary story, telecast the other night, one must thank India Today.

Once captain Babar Azam got out (50, three down for 155), somebody from Pakistan needed to do a General Ziv. Instead, the seven wickets to follow added only 36 runs in 13.1 overs!

It was as spectacular a crash as is possible. Solid-looking India didn’t have to sweat, winning by seven wickets with 19.3 overs remaining.

Such margins are unusual in India vs Pakistan matches, but the latter team has been losing big against India.

Indeed, in my Blog on Saturday, I’d posed a question in the headline: Will India’s 2023 win in Colombo have (Javed) Miandad’s 1986 effect? The answer was on view in Ahmedabad.

It was just over a month ago that India pulverised Pakistan by 228 runs in the Asia Cup, leaving Azam to quickly find answers to a million questions.

Go back 37 years and Miandad’s last-ball six off Chetan Sharma, which gave the Austral-Asia Cup to Pakistan, devastated India psychologically. Took years to regain confidence, to actually challenge Imran’s generation and the next one.

I’ve been privileged to report on India vs Pakistan games from the time of Zaheer Abbas, Imran Khan and Javed Miandad; Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev, to talk of India.

That generation in Pakistan was packed with icons, followed by other greats… Ramiz Raja, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Saeed Anwar, Younis Khan, Misbah-ul-Haq… 

Not that Pakistan didn’t lose wickets in quick succession before the Azams, but somebody would put his hand up to be counted. At least attempt a General Ziv.

An Imran or Miandad would have made India stretch every sinew in pursuit of 192, not throw in the towel even before Shaheen Shah Afridi’s first ball.

This Pakistan team lacks aura. 

Maybe, it’s unfair on my part to suggest diffidence in the Pakistan camp on the eve of the Big Clash, but Azam’s response to a question on captaincy ought to have been an emphatic ‘Why should I think about the captaincy now’?

Instead, Azam said: “I will achieve whatever God has decided for me. I didn’t get the captaincy because of one match and I won’t lose it because of one either.”

Nothing wrong with the content except that it wasn’t the best time – not before an India game, please – to even think about a possible negative result. Would have been fine had next day’s opponent been a minnow, not a World Cup favourite.

With India vs Pakistan matches weighed down by so much of non-cricket baggage, including nationalism in all its colours, partisan crowds are inevitable. 

Of course, crowds should be sporting (like in Chennai and Karachi, in 1998-1999 and 2003-2004, respectively) but how do you teach those out to create a nuisance?

Azam and his men have to get used to little or no support when up against India, for the possibility of meeting again in this World Cup cannot be ruled out.

Hostility was, in my view, only to be expected after Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Zaka Ashraf’s outrageous “dushman mulk” comment.

Vastly experienced Mickey Arthur, the team director, did put Pakistan’s unhappiness about the environment on record. Just as well he clarified it wasn’t an excuse. Obviously, it couldn’t have been. Not after a thrashing. 

“It didn’t seem like an ICC event to be brutally honest. It seemed like a bilateral series, seemed like a BCCI event. I didn’t hear ‘Dil, dil Pakistan’ coming through the microphones too often,” Mickey pointed out at the Media conference.

But what purpose is that going to serve?

Former captain Akram, appearing on a news channel, took the lead to tear into Mickey: “Who wants to hear that? What was the team’s pretion against Kuldeep (Yadav)? What was the overall strategy? We want answers to those questions… Mujhe woh sunnah hai.”

At best, the PCB may have written to the World Cup organisers. 

To sign off, it was amusing that  Ashraf gave a ‘pep talk’ to the Azams ahead of the India game.

Clearly, after Ashraf’s “dushman mulk” fiasco, he shouldn’t be saying anything, forget giving a motivational speech.

It didn’t work in the Big Clash, rather had the opposite effect!

This, by the way, is Ashraf’s innings No.3 as chairman. Definitely a man with the right connections.