A terminal decline?

Thursday, October 17, 2002 There was a dream that was Pakistan cricket, and it died in the dust of Sharjah. But this terminal illness began months ago with the ascent to the captaincy of Waqar Younis, before Pakistan's tour of England in 2001. Waqar has been a wonderful bowler for Pakistan. He has courage and leadership qualities. And it is these abilities that helped him create the mirage of rejuvenation in the first year of his captaincy. Perhaps without him Pakistan would have plummeted to these depths much earlier.

But back during that tour of England I debated the captaincy with Ramiz Raja, former Pakistan captain, respected commentator, and highly influential official of the Pakistan Cricket Board. I suggested to Ramiz on a radio show that Waqar was a poor choice as captain, simply because he was no longer the potent force that he had once been, and Pakistan cricket could ill-afford a captain who might not deserve his place in the side. Ramiz's response was that there was no viable alternative. Apart from this being less than a ringing endorsement, it said something about the woeful state of Pakistan cricket and the quality of players vying for a place in the side.

Waqar proceeded to prove his doubters wrong, myself included. Had Ramiz and the PCB got it right after all? A closer analysis revealed that Waqar's reputation was largely built on Test defeats of Bangladesh and West Indies - probably the poorest teams in international cricket apart from Zimbabwe - and one-day victories in the desert. Yet by defeating Australia at home in a one-day tournament in June, Waqar turned this sceptical analysis on its head. Instead of a spent force, he was looking more and more like the new Messiah that Pakistan cricket had been yearning for.

But that was a delusion, as the subsequent slide in form and fortune has revealed. And the successes of Waqar's first year as captain were little more than the last kicks of a dying dog. Now Waqar has been joined by coach Richard Pybus who has a history of ill-judged psychological warfare, the most recent evidence being his over-optimism about the second Test, and subsequent prediction of the demise of the Australian cricket team.

Successful coaches let their teams do the talking; poor ones make it their business to talk themselves up. If Pybus really is the coach that Waqar and the PCB reckon him to be, he should talk less and win some games. Yet neither of them talked much of their culpability for this terrible defeat. Pybus even suggested that it was not as bad as it seemed. For your information Mr Pybus, a school team would be ashamed of 59 and 53; Test players should be mortified.

None the less, 59 and 53 do not come about because one link in the chain fails. This dismal outcome arises from a complete system failure, the final act of a terminal decline. They say that success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan. But Pakistan cricket fully deserves to be orphaned by the departure of the men who brought about this calamity. And it will only recover by dint of a root-and-branch reform of the administration, selection process, team management, and coaching of the Test team and reserves.

Radical change is not achievable overnight, and success takes even longer. But Tauqir Zia has supervised this disaster and, however much his heart is in the right place, he has failed. There have been too many poor decisions made, or sanctioned, by him. Ultimately, he is responsible. Now that he is staying on, it should only be on the proviso that he will genuinely reform Pakistan cricket, and not in the piecemeal way that he has done up to now. Otherwise he may as well go - and take Waqar Younis, Richard Pybus, Ramiz Raja and the chairman of selectors Wasim Bari with him.

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