Neighbour’s envy

Can one even imagine a team large enough to hold Shoaib Akhtar’s ego? Losing an India-Pakistan series can splinter even the hardiest of squads, so Pakistan’s current crisis of self-inquiry is understandable. The feeble surrender of Inzamam-ul Haq’s men at Rawalpindi certainly merits a thorough appraisal for the good of Pakistan — and by extension subcontinental — cricket. Great rivalries test a sportspersons’s fitness, professionalism and mental resolve in addition to his talent. Inquiries are thus not necessarily antidotes to humiliation, they are a means of pulling up a team to international standards. Yet, the manner in which the cricket establishment in Pakistan is struggling to come to terms with the Shoaib episode, the way in which the Rawalpindi Express has derailed every other issue, these are telling reflections on what ails Pakistan.

Into the shenanigans of Shoaib have been collapsed the reasons for Pakistan’s defeat. The fast bowler — he who would breach the 100 miles per hour barrier each time he steams in to bowl — has certainly been critical to Pakistan’s success in recent times. After the almost simultaneous exit of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, who between them had every opposition trembling through the nineties, the burden of spearheading Pakistan’s fabled pace attack has fallen upon him. The speed and ease with which the team comes to grips with the fact that victories have many components — quality bowling, resilient batting and spotless fielding — will test its mettle. The sooner Pakistan realise that their exploits are constructed upon more than Shoaib Akhtar’s brilliance and histrionics, the faster will they announce their return from a bitter spell of infighting.

Actually Pakistan need look no farther than at India. To take stock of their troubles they need do no more than acknowledge that today they are as India once were. Personal rivalries in the Indian team once kept the media interested and the team handicapped. Overwhelming reliance on one man’s genius had profile hunters in business but team strategies in tatters. Pakistan’s current problems may be of their own making, but solutions do lie elsewhere. Professionalism is not a patented commodity.