Loss to India adds momentum to Pakistan’s alarming freefall

Showing no heart in Sunday’s Champions Trophy defeat against India, Pakistan cricket is in a really dark territory

Kolkata: In the commentary box, as Ravi Shastri highlighted former Pakistan star Inzamam-ul-Haq’s woeful running between the wickets after his nephew Imam-ul-Haq was run out in the Champions Trophy defeat to India in Dubai, adding that poor running “runs in the family”, Sunil Gavaskar, with Wasim Akram next to him, joked that it wasn’t a right assessment as “the family can’t run”.

Pakistan’s top batter Babar Azam, who was a shadow of his past best, embraces Virat Kohli after his unbeaten century sealed India’s victory in Sunday’s Champions Trophy Group A match in Dubai. (ANI)

On a post-match analysis show in Pakistan, their past stalwarts too were caustic. Shoaib Malik sang an old film hit “dil ke arman ansuon men bah gaye” (tears have washed away heart’s desire), struggling for words to explain Pakistan’s timid show in the six-wicket loss. Giving up on a “brainless and clueless management”, Shoaib Akhtar focused on praising Virat Kohli on his YouTube channel. On another TV show, Waqar Younis lamented the lack of discipline in all departments of their game.

Pakistan cricket is scraping the bottom. Home pitches are being overhauled to promote pace over spin in red-ball cricket. Barring the 2017 Champions Trophy, they haven’t won anything in white-ball cricket since the 2009 T20 World Cup. They didn’t even make the semis of the last three ODI World Cups. Once redoubtable stars, Babar Azam and Shaheen Shah Afridi have seen better days.

It’s not as if Pakistan haven’t been here before. The fixing scandals, Bob Woolmer’s death, forfeiting a Test match—Pakistan have seen it all in the last three decades. And often, some of the lowest of lows have given way to the highest of highs.

But the current despondency is deafening. As if the one-sided Champions Trophy showpiece match wasn’t enough, nothing can prepare you for a Pakistan skipper admitting defeat before defeat. For Mohammad Rizwan to leave Pakistan’s chances entirely to destiny feels so un-Pakistan, the inception of a bigger doom. You could sense its signs when India weren’t on top of their game. Dismal game awareness, lack of spunk, poor judgement, and to top it all, a general lack of will to put India under pressure. Shami conceding five wides in his 11-ball opening over before walking off the ground is just the opportunity previous Pakistani teams would have jumped on. Not this bunch though.

Fifty overs is enough time to conjure some magic, but Pakistan never were alive to the opportunities. Taking 30 overs to score 11 boundaries, something India took just 10 overs to equal, is a case in point. And then there was the 104-run stand between Rizwan and Saud Shakeel that held together Pakistan’s innings. But in 19 of the 24 overs they were together, Pakistan actually scored five or less runs. These are alarming numbers, not just in the context of the significance of the game, but also the format which Pakistan are clearly losing grip of. “We made mistakes we’ve been making in the last few matches,” said Rizwan.

“These aren’t new mistakes. We’ve been making them in the last four games. We work on them, but we are humans, our players are humans, these mistakes happen. We’re trying to work on those, we’re trying to put the effort in to resolve those. What I believe is that India’s effort was greater than us, they were braver than us.

“That is why they got the result. We made mistakes, maybe because when we had to show bravery in some moments we didn’t show enough. In our fielding we needed to show more energy, but maybe we were lacking in that, and so made mistakes.”

Pakistan getting knocked out in the group stage isn’t new. But they never used to throw in the towel, not even when the opponents need one run in 100 balls. An image carefully nurtured for decades by Imran Khan, Javed Miandad, Inzamam, Moin Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq now lies in tatters.

Akhtar attributed this seemingly irreversible slide to the dipping level of skill. Akram feels the entire system is in dire need of an overhaul and bold selections. The batting looks decidedly guarded. And you can’t hope to take on the world with two part-time spinners. On paper, they were no match to India. But in showing no heart in defeat, or any will to keep hopes up even when there exists only the slimmest of mathematical odds is the greatest disservice Pakistan could have done to their cricketing legacy.