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. 

Third Umpire: Pakistan Team Hope!

 If we can learn anything from the Pakistan's teams recent performance at the Asia Cup is that the cricket team is shrouded in Hope. There is always, as a spectator, a seething hopeful expectation that someone will perform to mask the failures of the rest of the team. Collectively the team cannot be proud of much because in essence it was Mohammed Rizwan versus the rest of the Asia Cup teams. Yes even the best of players go through bad patches, but there is something infectious of bad patches within the Pakistan team. 

With preparations for the T29 World Cup in Australia around the corner, the pitiful performance of the team does not abode well for us. Indeed many draw comfort from the fact we made the final and in doing so beat India. Out of the six matches we played we lost three and the three we won included two very close wins, while our losses we essentially wipe outs. Our batting failures were phenomenal disasters an exposed how disjointed our team can really be. 

As talk shifts to the upcoming World Cup we must stop and reflect on what went wrong in the Asia Cup and the bearing it has on the team selection ahead.

1. Captaincy.

Babar Azam's failures in batting can be seen as part and parcel of the bad days even the best of players have. However, it was his failure as a captain that gives concern. Especially in the final against Sri Lanka, with having them pinned down at 55 for 5 why not persist with the strike bowlers? Letting the pressure of with introducing Iftikhar (who had not even bowled in the tournament) was a crucial mistake. Nawaz, a specialist spinner ended up with one one over for three runs and by the time the strike bowlers were brought back the Lankan batsmen had already taken the initiative. Captaincy is all about planning and executing to a plan and when things don't seem to be going one's way to have imagination and boldness. Babar not only lacked this but somehow after the ninth over went on the defensive. School team captains will have more aggression and imagination than Babar Azam,

2. Batsmen.

The best bowling attacks in the world need a good total to defend, or when batting second batsmen need to plan the chase well. In this World Cup our batsmen were about as useful as a chocolate tea pot. Fakhar Zamman shot selection makes him ideal for a game of 'gulli danda' (Tipcat in English) but doubt he even knows how to play with a straight bat. Iftikhar, Khushdil, and Asif are really one player who comes in three different names, the lack of success and failed expectation of six hitters are common to all three. These triplets also seem to make the same mistakes in the same innings. 

3. Fielding. 

True that catches win matches, in our case collisions lose matches. Why don't fielders call for the high catches as being 'theirs'? Then the quality of catches was a fine display of butter fingers. Crucial fielding left offs, bad field placements and in general a lack of commitment on the field dragged down the morale of the team. On the fast outfields in Australia this lack of fielding skills will be seriously exposed. 

What about the team selection for Australia?

Clearly the upcoming series against England may well be a time to fix things. But more needs to be done than hope seven matches will fix the team. Some overhaul needs to happen. The three stooges in the middle order must go. We cannot continue to hope that in the next match by some miracle they will perform because in the same breath we know they will fail at crucial moments. The bowling side is well balanced and with Shaheen Shah back playing four fast bowlers, one spinner (Shahdab) and one all rounder (Nawaz) will give the options we need for bowling well in Australia. Rizwan and Babar are givens which means we have three batsmen to choose. Talk of Shoaib Malik should be put aside as he has a terrible record in Australia. 

Let us hope that replacements for Fakhar, Iftikhar, Khushdil and Asif can be found quick enough and tried out against the English. Some serious work needs to be done on Babar as a captain and hopefully to teach him to keep friendships off the field (reference his affinity for Hassan Ali). 

Two things we must learn from the Sri Lankan side.

a. Mental strength. Through the whole Asia Cup they should remarkable mental composure and no matter what happened they did not lost the plot.

b. Developing and Plan and keeping to it was one of their hallmarks. Each chase seemed to be carefully planned and at no time did they seem to be bogged down by the force of circumstance.

In essence Sri Lanka were the most deserving winners of the Asia Cup.

Pakistan's Cricketing Woes.

Cricket is a passion in Pakistan, a country devoid of much attention, raked with violence and the politics of division, this crazy game brings together people from the street to the mansion, from the mosque to the government office. The performance of the national team at the recent World T20 was perhaps steeped in a self destruct attitude to the extent that even the lack of imaginative captaincy and the failures of supposed talent seemed dwarfed by events. Pakistan did not lose its matches, it surrendered them unashamedly.

When T 20 cricket emerged on the world scene everyone felt the format of the T20 game suited the swashbuckling style of the likes of Shahid Afridi, Aamir Nazir, Umar Akmal et al. For a brief moment in time it seemed to be the case as Pakistan did win the World T 20 cup, (once) and since then seems to have frozen its talent and skill into a state of comatose that escapes reason. The recent showing at the World T20 Cup in India highlighted shortcomings which one would expect from a schoolboys team.

In so far as Shahid Afridi failed in his captaincy with the lack of imagination, inability to read the conditions of play and more importantly to make on field decisions to adjust to the situation, the failures of the team run deeper. There were flashes of brilliance, almost as if these individual performances were out of the script of collective failure. The lack of leadership was compounded by Afridi's own failures which seem to have taken chronic proportions. Ironically we keep hoping this one time hero will somehow perform and then everything will be fine. Yes he somehow manages that one in ten noteworthy performances to keep our fragile hopes alive.

The presence of players like Khalid Latif in the team begs the question "What were the selectors thinking? What did he ever achieve in this format?" More interestingly as shown by teams like Bangladesh and Afghanistan that the difference was in how well the team fought. Indeed their results may not have been better than Pakistan's but there was not doubt that as a team the collective effort was always present. Why was not Fahad Alam in the team, known for his fighting spirit and certainly a better record that Khalid Latif. Changes to the batting order were without a plan and at most times the change was really a gamble that failed.

On the bowling side only Mohammed Amir showed not only his will to fight but his ability to bowl to a plan and always seek to achieve a result. When other bowlers were lost in the woods and getting smashed around the captain was noticeably absent in giving them advice and calming their nerves.
The cocktail of failure was there for the making with the coach, Waqar Yunus absent in guiding the players to perform with effort, a captain who would not have listened to anyone and a bunch of players who are supposedly talented but on the day left the talent in their kit bags.

Some would argue that the whole cricket set up in Pakistan needs an overhaul. As Waqar Yunus himself pointed out that cosmetic changes will not help, yes indeed the problems run deep. They involve selection, captaincy and the nurturing of talent and providing an spirit of success that just simply is not there. The summer tour to England is the right platform to bring the changes for the future even it may mean the selected teams will be lacking the old look and the old faces, this is a rebuilding phase and it should be based on merit and not politics of board rooms and an organisation run by many who never held a cricket bat.