da brdice： There is not a cricket-playing country in the world as backward and as resistant to not just modernity but simple, natural progression as Pakistan
da pixbet： Osman Samiuddin in Hobart18-Jan-2010The broad point is often made in Pakistan that the world seems to bepassing the country by. The extent of it can still be debated, but thatthe cricket world has long since left Pakistan behind cannot be.This series, in the eyes of evolution, has been man grappling ape, mobilephones battling message-carrying pigeons. Australia, even this lessened,beatable Australia, has been at least a civilization ahead of Pakistan.There is not a cricket-playing country in the world as backward and asresistant to not just modernity but simple, natural progression asPakistan.This retardation pours out from their every pore, but it fairly gushes outwhen it comes to fielding. No side in the world is worse than Pakistan inthe field, absolutely no side. It isn’t just that they drop sitters, orare slower and stiffer in the field than the beings of a cemetery, thoughdropping nearly 30 catches in six Tests is bad enough. They were the lastside to pick up as basic a fielding skill as the slide, or the outfieldrelay throw. And even now they do them with all the ease of a couple on ablind date. Nobody hits the stumps with less frequency than them.This is science, but not that of rockets. Every side in the world hasbettered itself as fielding standards generally have gone up from the 90s.It used to be a deeper scar across the subcontinent. But the breadth ofchange across India has been vast and it has taken in fielding; Bangladesh- a child of the 90s – has never been bad to begin with; Sri Lanka havemade the biggest, most impressive strides.Pakistan? On their best days they have remained as poor as they have beenalways, on their bad days they have gotten worse. If someone were to writea tour diary of Pakistan’s last three trips, to Sri Lanka, New Zealand andAustralia, it wouldn’t be much different from the earliest such diariesAbdul Hafeez Kardar wrote in the 50s, replete as they were with accountsof endless dropped catches, written off as if they were somehow collateraldamage in the great battle to be a good Test side. That’s how little theyhave progressed over fifty years; mind you, no system of governance hasbeen settled upon in that time, so what is fielding?This team management’s response, day after day, dropped catch afterdropped catch, has been Luddite-headed and revealed an old, passé vision.’What will a specialist fielding coach do? The same thing we are doing.This is a grassroots problem.’ What Pakistan does in its fielding andcatching drills is actually very little other than throw up high balls forplayers to catch and standard slip-catching routines. They don’t thinkmuch more is necessary. So devoid of new ideas have they been that theywere passed on a fielding routine indirectly by an Australian official,which it is believed, was the first time they had even practiced somethingdifferent in months. It is broke. It needs fixing.It is also widespread. When was the last time a Pakistani tailendertransformed himself as did Jason Gillespie or Ashley Giles? Shoaib Akhtardid it for about six Tests in 2005-06 but anyone else? What Peter Siddledid in Sydney, none of Danish Kaneria, Umar Gul and Mohammad Asif arelikely to do.
If someone were to write a tour diary of Pakistan’s last three trips, to Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Australia, it wouldn’t be much different from the earliest such diaries Abdul Hafeez Kardar wrote in the 50s, replete as they were with accounts of endless dropped catches, written off as if they were somehow collateral damage in the great battle to be a good Test side
Pakistan had two men in the 70s who so helped transform the art of runningbetween the wickets: Javed Miandad and Asif Iqbal. Yet now they produce some of the worst, most inert runners. The two run-outs in Hobartpole-axed their reply, but the malaise goes beyond just bad judgment andindecisiveness.Pakistan’s batsmen are consistently the least likely to turn ones into twos,or twos into threes, and this is the bedrock of smart, modern batsmanship.There will always be one, two, maybe more, who do not ground their batsproperly when running in, or those who don’t back up at all as the bowlercomes in. Who does that anymore?Members of Pakistan’s entourage have painted a picture of incoherent teammeetings at the start of a day or in session breaks, random andill-planned. Subsequently, Pakistan have been at their poorest when theyneeded to be at their sharpest. Both openers were dropped in the veryfirst session of the series in Melbourne; Mitchell Johnson took twowickets in the first over of the last morning there; Nathan Hauritz tooktwo wickets in an over soon after tea on the last day in Sydney; RickyPonting was dropped on nought on the first morning in Hobart; Peter Siddletook the key wicket in his second over on the final morning here;three-nil and all through the summer Pakistan have not identified keysessions and moments. These are sins of uncaring, unthinking, lazy minds.The leadership was timid, the batting limited and Australia declared fourtimes out of six against a bowling attack that is supposed to bePakistan’s strength; yet no stronger taste is left in the mouth as that ofthis vast, debilitating unmodernity, which inflicted a whitewash uponPakistan itself. It is charming when they win with all this or push sidesclose, because it is a retro throwback to the times when talent andlaziness could still win the day. But they lose more often because of itand it is infuriating.On the fourth morning in Hobart, Intikhab Alam gave some catching practiceto Kamran Akmal, regular stuff with one throwing a ball at a crouched,slow Intikhab who would open the face of the bat and edge to Akmal. Hemanaged to give about five catches to Akmal, out of maybe fifty. The scenewas everything, and nothing about it was right.