DarkTimes - 24Hr Global News Blog

The unrest and political turmoil prevailing in the country is badly jeopardising the events related to sports in general and the cricket activities in particular. The Quaid-e-Azam Trophy successfully completed its ten rounds. The situation that worsened after the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, however, compelled the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to call off the eleventh round and postpone the matches played all over the country to a later date.

The next event that causes a major worry to the whole nation is a question mark on the Australian Team’s tour of Pakistan scheduled for March-April 2008. This being the Australia’s tour of Pakistan after a lapse of ten years, the millions of cricket fans are over-anxious to watch them in action. Since the tour is still about ten weeks away it is expected that the Australians will not deprive our cricket fans of the excitement that they have waited since long. While Cricket Australia has no plans of calling off the tour, it is quite likely that around half a dozen super stars will not accompany the squad. Considering it as their right to do so, the Australian Cricketers’ Association has decided to support the players.

Living in a paradox skipper Shoaib Malik plans to approach the top Australian players on personal net in a bid to ease their minds about conditions in Pakistan and to convince them to play the series. He wants to speak to them on phone and tell them that: “we will have good security for you.” I feel Shoaib is too small in stature to convince them. The postponement of general elections has further aggravated the situation. The Australians had planned to send their security mission after the elections. With elections now set for February 18, it would only leave a fortnight between the country going to polls and the Australian team’s arrival. They feel it would give Australia’s security mission little time to make its assessment and be able to sanction the tour. Former captain turned politician Imran Khan feels that “the cricketers are not under any threat. The Australia’s tour of Pakistan should go ahead”. Let us hope the PCB convinces the Aussies on this point.

Pakistan being the land of chronic political problems, there were occasions in the past when we had to play such series on neutral grounds in neighbouring countries. Way back in 2002 on account of the security fears sparked in the aftermath of 9/11 when Australia refused to tour Pakistan, the series was played in Colombo. Earlier in the same year, the West Indies refused to play in Pakistan and the matches were shifted to Sharjah. New Zealand had to cut short its trip to Pakistan as the result of a bomb blast outside their hotel in Karachi in May 2002. South Africa, India and England refused to play Test matches in Karachi between 2003 and 2005 due to blasts and security fears in the city. The most recent case was of a one day international against South Africa that was shifted from Karachi after Benazir Bhutto survived a bomb blast on October 18. It may also be noted that for the last many years we have not staged an international match in Peshawar due to the fears caused by unrest in Afghanistan and some parts of NWFP. PCB chief Nasim Ashraf has, however, ruled out any chance of staging the forthcoming series at a neutral venue.

The Australia tour being still away, the Zimbabwe cricketers are scheduled to land in Karachi on January 12 to play a series of five ODIs. There appears to be no reluctance on their part to visit Pakistan although the PCB is prepared to reschedule the tour in view of change in the election date if required. The people of advanced countries, having a relatively peaceful atmosphere, are not tuned to the way of life in politically disturbed regions. In contrast, in the under-developed or politically unstable countries the violence, riots, disturbances and even blasts are a part of daily life. Their people thus possess much stronger nerves to face all sorts of troubles. I remember during the World Cup 1996 there was a bomb blast in Colombo where the Australians and the West Indies were scheduled to play their match. Both the teams were so scared that they refused to go there. Since Sri Lanka had made all the preparations and sold out tickets in full, the match could not be cancelled. After deliberations on the subject, the two organising countries India and Pakistan decided to send their teams to fill the vacuum. The teams played the match and returned safely.

The year 2007 having passed we have stepped into 2008 with high spirits, fresh hopes and aspirations. A cursory glance over the performance of our cricket team during the past year will show that with no laurels worth the name, the defeats and disappointments reigned supreme. The nation’s aspirations were shattered when our team crashed out in the preliminary round of the World Cup at the hands of a team whose name was never heard before. The team, however, managed to win an ODI series against Sri Lanka before it lost the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup final to India. As for the Test series Pakistan lost all the three series, two against South Africa (home and away) and one against archrivals India on their soil. They also lost the ODI series both against South Africa and India. As per statistics for the past year, out of 8 Test matches Pakistan were successful in only one match, while they won 8 ODIs out of 23. Bangladesh with 34.78 percent and Ireland with 30.55 percent are the two teams below Pakistan. This is certainly a deplorable performance. Our team’s poor performance during the year brought them down to an all time low in ICC rankings: number 6. It is high time for the PCB to improve the falling standard of the national cricket team.