Cricket Bloggers of Pakistan

I usually have limited this blog’s scope to Pakistani cricket, not because I don’t enjoy other cricket, but because I’m afraid that if I start writing about more stuff, it will take over my life and then my parents will disown me, my wife will leave me and my kids will refuse to recognize me!

Yet, I just could not pass this up. It really does appear that in 2007, no one in authority has to resign anymore no matter what they do! After Australia deservedly won a World Cup where they truly and totally dominated, the umpires lead by the match referee, Jeff Crowe totally screwed up everything with the ending of the match turning it into an absolute farce. Most of us rational folk would have to see it to believe it, and even then it looked like something out of one of Dante’s hells not reality. Yet, at the end of the day, Jeff Crowe has the gall to say that this is not something to resign over! For crying out loud! Nasim Ashraf doesn’t have to resign, Tony Blair doesn’t have to resign, Musharraf doesn’t have to resign, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Anthony Gonzales don’t have to resign, no one had to resign over the Oval fiasco and no one resigns anytime, anywhere! In cricket, the game and the players suffer all and in life, the people and their lives suffer all. It truly does look like all accountability has left our world, like Aslan left C.S. Lewis’ world. How absolutely preposterous.

This article at Cricket Bloggers of Pakistan has been composed by Ahmer Karimuddin.

Pray tell me this is good news! Personally it could not have been better to see both these individuals sit out the selection process in protest.

Just two days back the PCB issued a advertisement on its website asking for people to apply for a coaching job in Pakistan. The salient features of the memo were as follows (PDF)

NATIONAL COACH

Pakistan Cricket Board seeks applications from interested Cricket Coaches for the position of National Coach.

The key responsibilities of this position will entail:

• Working closely with the Selection Committees and Director Game Development
• Preparation of game plans
• Organization of net sessions and fielding drills.
• Conducting Coaching Workshop and seminars
• Making use of Video Analysis and conducting SWOT analysis for each game/team
• Maintaining highest level of confidentiality in matters sensitive to the PCB’s operational outlook.

The successful application will be required to demonstrate:

• Experience in leading, motivating, mentoring, educating and influencing within a team environment.
• Exceptional communication and man-management skills
• Strong interpersonal skills to develop and sustain cohesive team structures
• A strong understanding of modern sports coaching techniques
• A commitment to success
• Must have played professional cricket (at least 1st class)
• Should preferably be an ECB Level III Qualified Coach or equivalent from another country.
• Must possess good computer knowledge.

Ladies and gentleman, please brace your self to get familiar with the names, identities, idiosyncrasies, weird theologies and even weired preferences of a brand new, and this time, fully paid, selection committee. The much awaited announcement of who would comprise and lead the new selection panel following the resignation of Bari and co. after the World Cup was made a few hours ago by the PCB.

Salahuddin Mulla Ahmed (more famously Sallu Bhai) who is a veteran selector that has previously been on the committee no less then 13 times both as a member and as the chairman, will lead the three member panel again. The other members of the committee are Shafqat Rana, who is also a previous member on three occasions, and the former Test left-arm fast bowler Saleem Jaffar, who is the only debutant in the panel. Jaffar is currently the coach of the Sindh team in the Pentangular Cup 2007, and he’s told Cricinfo he’ll try to put his local knowledge of domestic cricket into use. What’s more interesting to me then the actual committee however, is this so-called “new” selection policy. I quote from Cricinfo:

Yes, Shoaib. We know that it was the knee injury not the nandrolone coursing through your veins that kept you out of the World Cup. Lets wonder why no one has repeated the test, despite the last six months. Hmm. Didn’t our Mr. Nasim Ashraf, president of PCB, say that it was going to happen “within the month”? Well, he being a nephrologist, should know about the excretion patterns and timings of steroids, and that is probably why the testing hasn’t been done. Someone want to correct me here?

This article at Cricket Bloggers of Pakistan has been composed by Ahmer Karimuddin.

Guest Post by Faisal Sherdil

I have calculated the points and here is the current status of world cup teams.

1. Ireland, Bangladesh and West Indies are already out of the cup. There is no way they can quality to Semis. Australia is confirmed in the semis (though they have to beat one of Ireland, Sri Lanka or NZ, which they will).

2. The next Borderline team to get out is England. They have 2 more games, against South Africa and West Indies. They have to win both the games. If they lose any, they are out. Then the Semi Finalists would be (Australia, NZ, Sri Lanka and South Africa).

3. However, if England wins both its games (unlikely though), then still they do not qualify directly, but rather fall in a Triangle with two other teams. In that triangle, two of the three teams would qualify. This Triangle can be one of the following two:

Triangle 1: If Today NZ wins against Srilanka, then NZ qualifies. Then the 3 teams in Triangle would be Srilanka, South Africa and England. Run-Rate will be used to decide the top 2. (Note that in such a scenario, it would be like this: South Africa beat Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka beat England, and England beats South Africa. So run-rate needed)

This article at Cricket Bloggers of Pakistan has been composed by Ahmer Karimuddin.

Article from Dawn today. Rumours keep persisting that Younis Khan does not want to take the captaincy position because “he doesn’t see wide support in the cricket community for him to replace Inzamam.” While under seniority, Yousuf would be the next person for the job, but it appears, according to this report, that Shoaib Malik is under consideration. Previous reports have also brought forward Shahid Afridi as a potential candidate. While Shoaib Malik would be a brave and unorthodox choice, after Younis, Yousuf and Inzamam, he has truly become a cornerstone of the middle order, and his selection to the team is almost always a given. And while there has been much quesitoning about Younis’ place in the ODI squad, Shoaib Malik is a key fixture in both ODI and Test squads for Pakistan. While I am not sold in any way on Shoaib’s unproven leadership skills, his choice, if supported by the rest of the team has the ability to be an inspired and long-term choice.

This article at Cricket Bloggers of Pakistan has been composed by Ahmer Karimuddin.

I think the players could well take P J Mir to court for this, and they probably should do to so too, I know I would have done so if such allegations were thrown at me. Now I know exactly why Inzi was as emotional as he was in his press conference last week.

So what has Mir done to outrage me this time? Suggested that the team’s early exit in West Indies was down to their focus being on ‘religious activity and preaching’ rather than on cricket.

“I could not disclose this fact before” he innocently told the performance review committee set up to investigate the reasons for Pakistan’s performance in the West Indies, “but today I inform the media that most of the members had no focus on cricket, their fixation was on preaching, affecting the team’s preparations.”

Now before I attempt to disclose the flaws in his argument, let me give a you brief idea of what exactly he means by “praying”. You see, as Muslims, we’re obligated to pray five teams a day; once just before dawn (fajr), once just after noon (zuhar), once in the afternoon (asr) when the shadows have lengthened, once just after sunset (maghrib), and then once in the night (isha).

Seriously will PJ Mir in cahoots with Naseem Ashraf shut up and stop accusing the team for overdosage of religiosity blaming it as the sole reason which lead to the devastation in West Indies.

I remain a moderate Muslim, but was definitely proud to see a good side emerge from within the ranks, this new team was more focused on the task at hand they had melted into a strong unit joined together with the bond of religion. Literally this is a dream come true for any manager or coach no distractions just a concentrated lot of players, no more worries about late night curfew, no more game-time hangovers, no more gambling and more importantly no more issues of discipline. This Pakistan team management only needed to work on keeping their focus on the game and you would have yourselves a winning combination, is that too difficult of a task. OR did Nasim Ashraf desire to lead a party-gone-crazy team which in his logic might lead to relieving pent-up stress as drinking an occasional bottle of Vodka on the rocks is the perfect remedy to better health. I suspect he feels religion is a hindrance to success.