We lost again but badly
After the first Test match with England, the well-known English cricket journalist Sylde Berry wrote in the Daily Telegraph about Pakistan’s Test team that it is the worst team in 50 years. He was statistically correct, but it was painful and worrying for cricket fans at home. In 2022, our team was ranked 5th in the ICC Test Rankings, which moved to 7th in 2024, and now we are ranked 9th, the bottom of the ranking table. Rain delays aside, we lost both Test matches against England within 3 days of actual game time, thus saving 2 days each for a picnic trip or soul searching. The PCB showed concern and immediately sent the White Ball coach to London in the middle of the second Test for reasons known only to the PCB.
The strange thing is that any player in our Test team can be dropped from the playing XI and replaced by any other player sitting in the pavilion, even the vice-captain. We saw that Salman Agha was not playing the second Test match. Ironically, the decision was made on merit. The nation saw images of players with 2-3 bandages on their hands, slipping and dropping catches, while Shaheen Afridi stood at the square leg with an injured finger. Rizwan Ahmed nervously stood near the stumps with a loosely fitted pet guard and a borrowed fielder’s helmet, giving a clumsy look. All this reflects the lack of cricketing sense or wrong choices, unprofessional training and low standard physical fitness of a partner forced by fate. Not learning from the mistakes of the first Test match, our team still entered the second Test match short of a fast bowler.
The decision emerged more out of fear of batting failure than the pitch and weather conditions in the Lord’s Test. Seven specialist batsmen, and we still scored 110 in the first innings and 194 in the second. A real fast bowler sitting in the pavilion, if he had been replaced by a batsman, would have restricted England to below 200 and below 150 in the second innings of this Test match. We gave away 100-plus runs in the first innings, including a last-wicket contribution of 48 runs, which created pressure, and our team was bowled out for 110 and actually lost the Test on the second day. In the game of cricket, a drop in batting performance is said to follow a definite increase in the performance of any cricketer. Since 2022, Salman Ali Agha has played 54 Test innings at an average of 36 with only three centuries. The selection committee knows best what talent, performance and selection criteria Salman Agha meets to play all three formats of cricket. Similarly, Rizwan Ahmed had lost his usefulness as a wicket-keeper and national-level batsman a year ago, but how long it will take the PCB to realize this fact is a mystery.
Millions of cricket fans in Pakistan have been watching our last 5 wickets continuous poor performance. In latter day and recently in T20 cricket, this trend has been quietly hidden. The highlight of the Test matches, the last 5 wickets scored 19 runs in the first innings of the second Test and 39 runs in the second innings. The average score for the last 5 wickets in the last 86 innings over five years is 59 runs. This is more embarrassing than alarming. The average score for the first five wickets in Test matches in the last 86 innings is also only 185.
In the last four years, Pakistan have played 75 Test innings and scored a total of 14,540 runs at an average of 195 runs per innings. 78% of these runs were scored by the first five wickets while the last five wickets accounted for 22%. There were 85 ducks, 230 out for less than 10 runs and 314 for less than 20 runs at home.
Mediocrity prevails in both the selection and the batting performance of our Test team. Fielding quality is another disastrous aspect of our cricket in all three formats. It seems as if we have dismissed it as a bad job or surrendered to fielding. Lack of awareness of advanced fielding techniques is leading to finger injuries and frequent dropped catches. All the statistical facts show a definite gap in the areas of selection, training, grooming and play in all three formats of cricket.
Any upward launch requires three indispensable steps. First, a truly independent and truly powerful team of selectors consisting of 3 and preferably 5 persons with no chief selector. It should be a cricketing mind with an instinctive feel and an eye on the ground to identify talent. We have in-house capabilities in this category. Secondly, a concept-based training system under new batting, bowling and fielding coaches that can solve problems and make players physically and technically stronger.
We can combine domestic and international resources in this category of reforms, but foreign coaches must prevail. Third, an administrator and a mentor, but not a physiatrist or ex-player, who interacts, communicates, lives and eats with the team almost 24/7. He even prepares the players both psychologically and mentally by sitting in the pavilion to plan on occasion. Only talent, focus training and mental strength can guarantee victory in today’s changing cricket in all three formats. We can and must restore cricket’s lost dignity, and to do so we must take immediate, comprehensive and practical remedial measures.
The post We lost again but badly appeared first on Daily Pakistan English News.
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