Third Umpire: Cricket, 30% Talent 70% Attitude.

 In fairness the by line of Talent and Attitude is borrowed from the lovely game of basketball, with a small change in the play of words, it applies to the Pakistan cricket team aptly. Losing and wining is part and parcel of any sport, the crucial question is the manner in which you lose and most importantly what do you learn from your short comings. Ever since following the Pakistan team one has had to accept this team can surprise one when least expected and disappoint us in equal measure. 

Six months before the current World Cup campaign there was a feeling that the team possessed a penentrating pace attack, (two or three wickets in the first ten overs) and a decent but not spectacular spin and an enviable top order batting line up. In the Asia Cup, prior to the current competition, the defeat to India seemed to have not only dented these perceptions but severely damaged them. Fast bowlers hunt in pairs, and Naseem Shah being sidelined can partly explain the wheels falling off the sting of the pace attack. But then we always boasted of depth in our battery of pace bowlers, and while Hassan Ali, surprisingly has stepped up, the previously dependable pacers have lost their mojo. Haris Rauf is hell bent of breaking the world speed record and forgetting what price he has to pay in runs for that.

It has been some time since Pakistan possessed world class spinners, and while Shahdab can have a few great outings, the consistency is sorely absent. In the batting department the team rested on the twin shoulders of Babar Azam and Mohammed Rizwan, with the odd man standing up and being counted. If either one failed the task of batting to the objectives become twice as hard, if both failed the team failed. While Abdullah Shafique may have plugged some of the gaps at the opener level, the problem remains at the middle order where no one is dependable enough to hold the fort and then take the battle to the opposing bowlers. Why batsmen like Babar, Kohli, Warner and few others excel is because fundamentally speaking they have a good technique. The ability to adjust their approach is an element of their technique allowing them to play each ball on its merit. The middle order on the other hand even when they may have technique have a misplaced approach. The mentality is to slog their way out of trouble, rather than keep the scoreboard ticking along. 

Over lay these bowling and batting disasters with perhaps the shoddiest fielding by any side in the modern day game of cricket and you have a biryani that will be tasteless and destined for the rubbish bin. Dolly catches dropped, straight forward fielding mistakes giving boundaries and a general lack of application in the field are visible through 50 agonizing overs of spills and mishaps. In fairness over the recent years fitness of the players has improved, but with it the improvement of fielding skills has been lacking. 

Failures happen to the best bowlers and batsmen and this is part and parcel of the game. The fundamental problem with the team remains ATTITUDE. When pace bowlers are being hit all over the park they don't adjust their line and length till atleast two overs of misery have passed. The bowlers don't seem to read the conditions and forget the cardinal rule that when things are not going well go to wicket to wicket bowling, nothing sexy nothing fancy. Leadership remains a major worry; Babar Azam is a great player but his captaincy skills leave a lot to be desired. Rarely does he walk up to a bowler being battered to guide him or encourage him. His bowling changes are strange at times, and when there is the need to attack his field settings are defensive. Perhaps the burden of captaincy added to the need to perform is too much for his shoulders. 

With three defeats Pakistan needs to win all the remaining matches and hope a result here or there in other matches goes their way. However getting into the final four will need more than divine intervention, prayers and hope. The mental approach of all the players will need to be totally focused and positive. The plan for each match will have to be carefully put into place with a Plan B and even Plan C in place should things not go the way they want. Playing to the conditions is very important, and this essentially means that Indian wickets are unforgiving for wayward bowling and this is where the difference has been for teams like India and South Africa. Both teams have bowled not as they love to bowl elsewhere in the world but simply kept it simple and uncomplicated letting the batsmen make the mistakes. 

Prior to the tournament I felt that England was the best balanced side and perhaps my favorites for the Cup. Their bowling, much like Pakistan's tried to search for the seam and swing which was only available on Indian wickets is sparing sessions. The failure to then adjust the attack has meant that both teams have lost their way in this campaign. I am not sure we have a world class mental coach for the team but at this stage what the Pakistan team, (and the England team) need most is a change in the mental approach to the games that are left. 

Hamas, Israel and the Tragedy Gaza will become.

 

Fifty years after the Yom Kippur war of October 1973, almost to the date (October 6th) Hamas launched a surprise attack from Gaza across the border into Israel. The military excursion by Hamas occurred at a time when optimism for a normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel was building up. While one may wonder as to the timing of this attack there is a broader perspective which has been stirring the pot towards heightened tensions for sometime now. The present military conflict that has exploded in Gaza is not a Palestine-Israeli conflict but essentially a Hamas- Israeli conflict. 

The Hamas attack galvanises Israeli opinion behind a beleaguered Prime Minister Netanahyu as Israel has always viewed its security a matter of paramount importance. The result has been a growing call for retribution for the killing of Israelis by the Hamas fighters. While a ground invasion of Gaza is very much on the cards the wanton aerial attacks have pretty much flattened large swaths of residential areas in an over populated Gaza. Clearly the meaning of 'measured response' has been sidelined in the ferocity of Israeli reprisals which suggest that two wrongs don't make a right. 

To students of history this recent outbreak of hostilities is no surprise. Since 2006 when Hamas had taken control of the administration of the Gaza strip the blockade of Gaza commenced from both Israel and Egypt. While humanitarian supplies and fuel to run the only power plant were allowed, Gaza's ability to export goods and agricultural produce were severely curtailed. In addition excise and custom collections from the Israeli side of the crossing were done by the Israelis and since 2010 have never been paid to either the Hamas in Gaza or the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. The result has been no money for the administration of Gaza and given the conflict between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas there has been no incentive for this matter to be resolved. 

It is no surprise that the effect of 13 years of blockade would be a sense of denial and frustration. Thus when the incident at Al Aqsa Mosque happened towards in April 2023 the reaction was an explosion of this frustration and the resultant attack on Israel by Hamas started with small scale rocket attacks. While this was not the first attack by Hamas neither was the Al Aqsa mosque incident the first provocation by the Israeli side. Indeed during 2023 and before the recent violence Israel forces have killed over 247 Palestinians. There is frustration that since 2000 there has been a lack of progress on a comprehensive peace settlement between all sides to this conflict. Since the 2003 Palestinian elections the schism within the Palestinians has become all the more obvious as Hamas as emerged as the most popular party in Gaza. 

The current situation has to be seen a gross failure on the part of all parties to seek a lasting solution to the problems of Palestine. The fact that statehood for Palestine has been in limbo for decades and Israel's departure from the two state concept, which was a condition of normalisation of relations between Palestinians and Israeli's, adds to state of flux within the politics of Palestine. The expansionist policy of the Israeli state with new settlements and the occupation of new areas within what was Palestinian land, even after the various accords which were designed to demarcate the boundaries has not helped matters. 

As bombs rain down on Gaza and Hamas retaliates with rockets into Israel the question remains 'Where do we go to from here?' 

There is no doubt that the civilians mostly in Gaza will carry the brunt of the suffering from this war. Indeed, for Israeli's the shock of the Hamas attack and the killing of 1,400 of its citizens is a massive security set back for the government of Israel. The unfolding of events will be complicated and difficult but the following could be the outcomes.

1. Israel will continue to chock Gaza with a total blockade and cut off food, water, medical supplies and fuel. This they hope will cause an exodus of civilians (who they feel the Hamas is using as a human shield) leaving Gaza to then house only the Hamas fighters.

2. After a complete starvation of Gaza and the exodus of civilians the ground invasion of Gaza will start. 

3. From here on things will get complicated. Even with overwhelming forces the eradication of Hamas fighters will be a long, protracted and bloody war. If the operation is not swift the dynamics of war will change perceptions within the Israeli public. Long protracted invasions always result in this as we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

4. There are voices within Israel who are calling for a total annexation of the Gaza strip and while not an elegant or viable solution it is a possiblity one should not ignore. 

5. If annexation is discarded as non feasible. which is truly the case, then the question remains what happens to the Gaza strip after an Israeli pull out? Is the area handed over to the Palestinian Authority who may have an uphill task to rebuild their image and trust with the people of Gaza who rejected them in 2003! On the other hand it is likely that even though Hamas may be defeated as a fighting force it may well remain as a political player within Palestinian politics. 

6. On a broader regional basis Israel alone cannot appeal to its new found Arab friends to intervene for peace. On the other hand without a doubt the United States has lost its position as an honest broker in the peace process. Indeed Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE would play a front role in the rebuilding of a destroyed Gaza, but their ability to influence political outcomes will largely depend upon how Israel shapes it policy towards a lasting peace. 

As a closing note there cannot be any joy amongst any humanist seeing images of women and children being killed on either side of this fighting. There will be many who will comment on who has suffered more, the Palestinians or the Israeli, the truth is that one woman, one child killed in this conflict is one too many.