Without Afridi?

Even by Pakistan crickets stratospheric standards of unpredictability,there was something reckless in the disciplinary action announced on Wednesday. After the disastrous tour of Australia,something had to give. It did,and how. In essence,the Pakistan Cricket Board has deprived itself of its most talented players.

While players could yet appeal the decision,the incident highlights a concept peculiar to Pakistan cricket: player power. Pakistan cricket continues to be a source of great enrichment for the game in part by the manner in which its talent finds utterance. Players most often burst into the side with a raw talent this is because of the absence of a robust domestic grid and the popularity of gully cricket with its premium on inventiveness taped tennis balls,etc. Pakistans challenge has been to productively harness this talent. But its administrators are divided into factions,often aligned to the ruling dispensation in Islamabad,and a history of wholesale takeovers by rival factions has meant that administration is more personalised than institutionalised. Meanwhile,talent has tended to coalesce around star players,like A.H. Kardar,Imran Khan,Wasim Akram,most recently Inzamam-ul-Haq. These players for most of their careers dominated key team decisions,and imposed a measure of discipline on the strength of their personality arguably while sometimes keeping out talented players seen to be of another camp.

But the current lot,a very talented team that is set to defend its Twenty20 world title in a couple of months,is a loosely aligned bunch and given to shocking infighting,as was on display on the Australia tour. It could perhaps be that the current purge is a way for the board to gain power when player power is so fragmented. Sadly,so far there is no signal that Pakistans cricket administrators are learning to

better manage their talent.