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Pakistani batsman Shoaib Malik sends a delivery towards the boundary during the Canada Cup 20/20 game between Pakistan and Sri Lanka in King City, Ontario, on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2008. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press,Chris Young)
Despite individual brilliance, Pakistan has not reached its full potential in Test cricket. They have made headlines of the wrong sort in their 57 years as a Test nation. Internal dissensions, captaincy disputes and accusations of ball-tampering, bribery, and match-throwing are often associated with their national teams.
One might say, when Pakistanis play a match, can controversy be far behind?
Javed Miandad, Salim Malik, Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Asif, and Shahid Afridi have all been involved with controversies of various hues and shades.
Not that all of them have been associated in drug scandals or match-fixing.
Nor are the Pakistanis the only ones involved.
But anything Pakistan does is viewed with suspicion. Look at the just-concluded Champions Trophy. They lost to Australia off the final ball of the match and an India newspaper smelt a rat.
They lost deliberately so that India won’t make it to the semis. No proof, no evidence, just a hunch. And it made headlines.
Then the Pakistanis lost to New Zealand in the semi-final, and out came allegations that skipper Younis Khan had dropped a catch on purpose.
I am not a great supporter of the Pakistani cricket team. And in the past some of the allegations have been proven correct.
But why blame them for everything just because they are Pakistanis? And without any tangible proof?
“If it is shady, Pakistani’s are guilty” is the catch phrase. And it’s said with a nudge and a wink.
If a Pakistani fielder were to chew gum in the slips and spit on his palm, there would be questions suggesting that this was a trick to take fabulous catches.
As a country, Pakistan is passing through a massive crisis. No cricket team wants to visit them. And not without justification.
But rather than giving up cricket and lamenting, “Why keep playing, what’s the point?”, they continue producing high-caliber cricketers.
Against all odds they won the ICC World Twenty20 Trophy a few months ago.
And they defeated the highly fancied India convincingly in the ICC Champions Trophy last week and lost to world champs Australia only off the last ball of the match.
Although some of their cricketers deserve condemnation, they are not the only ones who are guilty.
Their players have to be pitied rather than censored for the faults of their politicians and for the insufferable political climate they manage to survive in. And still they come close to dominating international cricket.
I won’t be surprised if they create a shock or two Down Under in December–January, unless Ricky Ponting’s Australians take them seriously.
Here is my plea to international journalists: if they lose to Australia – on paper a stronger team – praise Australia and do not suggest that Pakistan threw it.