Malik M. Ashraf
After losing to New Zealand and India in the ongoing ICC Champions Trophy, Pakistan’s journey to expected glory has ended, with no mathematical calculations suggesting otherwise. People are extremely disappointed and angry, particularly regarding the loss to traditional rival India—and justifiably so. The hype that was created before the commencement of the tournament had given false hopes to the people regarding Pakistan winning the coveted trophy and settling scores with India. That was never to be. It was an unimpressive and disappointing performance indeed.
We lost twice to New Zealand in the tri-nation series and then repeated the same performance in the Champions Trophy, making it three consecutive losses to that country. In spite of that, the people were led to believe that the team would stage a comeback by beating India. The media, PCB chairman, functionaries of the board, captain, and coach of the team cried hoarse in proclaiming and eulogising the team’s winning potential. The people of Pakistan, for whom cricket is a passion, believed that unsuspectingly.
I am also a keen follower of cricket and do understand the game to some extent. While comparing Pakistan’s team with other participating combinations in regard to their record and recent performances, as well as our dismal display in the home series against Bangladesh and England, it was hard for me to believe that we would be able to take advantage of our home conditions to turn the tables on other competitors, particularly teams like Australia and India. However, I did give Pakistan an outside chance against New Zealand in view of our past triumphs against them.
We do have stars and big names in the team, but the problem is that we are not playing cricket according to modern requirements. While the rest of the teams have raised their scoring rates, we are still playing 1990s cricket. This was glaringly on display in our match against India. They were able to control the game right from the beginning. After the fall of two early wickets, though Rizwan and Saud Shakeel put up a partnership of 104, they consumed 144 deliveries in achieving that figure. Rizwan, the captain, scored 46 in 77 balls—a pathetic feat by any standard for a one-day game. The team overall played 91 dot balls, meaning that for fifteen out of fifty overs, our team did not score a single run. With that kind of approach, how could you expect to win?
The target of 241 was never going to bother a team like India, which boasts the services of stars like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shreyas Iyer, and Shubman Gill—players with impeccable records of scoring runs at a much higher rate than our stalwarts. However, people still hoped that our bowlers, such as Shaheen Shah Afridi, Naseem Shah, and Haris Rauf, supported by Abrar Ahmed, might be able to compensate for the batters’ poor performance. But regrettably, they too disappointed with their lacklustre performance. To be honest, they looked quite ordinary.
Virat Kohli, as usual, rose to the occasion, and with his immaculate innings of 100, ably supported by a fifty from Shreyas Iyer, accomplished the task in 42.3 overs. In the end, it was the failure of both our batters and our bowlers to make a game of it. It was indeed a humiliating defeat, which has invoked severe criticism of the team, besides causing utter disappointment and anger among the people who were made to believe that this time the team would repeat the feat of 2017.
I think it is absolutely wrong on the part of the PCB and those connected with it to create unnecessary hype regarding our match against India. We always bill it as the biggest contest of the tournament, conveniently neglecting the fact that other teams are also in the competition, and their encounters could likewise be branded as the biggest matches. We love to speak from a higher pedestal, ignoring ground realities. As they say, the greater the hopes, the greater the disappointment.
The reality regarding India-Pakistan matches in World Cups and the Champions Trophy is that, except for 2017, India has always beaten us in these events. Even in the 1992 World Cup, which we eventually won, India had beaten us at Sydney by a big margin. I was personally present at the ground to watch the match. Pakistan was lucky to survive the scare of an early exit when our match against England, in which our team was sent to the pavilion with only 72 runs on the board, was washed away by rain, earning us a crucial point. However, our advance also depended on the Australia versus West Indies match, which was luckily won by the former. That paved the way for our progress to the next stage. Pakistan then beat Australia and Sri Lanka to reach the semi-final against New Zealand, which was also won convincingly. In the final, thanks to brilliant performances by Inzamam-ul-Haq, Wasim Akram, Javed Miandad, and Imran Khan, Pakistan clinched the honour of becoming world champions.
The lessons to be learned are that we need to change our approach to the shorter versions of the game, including T20 and one-day matches, in line with modern standards. Winning and losing are part of the game, and there is no need to whip up emotions and raise people’s hopes through unrealistic claims.
The writer is a freelance columnist. He can be reached at ashpak10@gmail.com
