Pakistan are the current T20 world champions. Shahid Afridi, Umar Gul, Mohammed Aamer, Saeed Ajmal and company played some enthralling cricket to claim the trophy last year. Since then, Pakistan have seen another exciting batsman emerge on the horizon: Umar Akmal. Therefore, it defies logic that nobody wanted to buy the 11 Pakistani players in the IPL 3 auction on Tuesday.
 
What's the reason? Let us go through what has been proffered by the men and women involved with IPL. Some team owners have said that the Pakistani players had a problem of availability during the period. That's nonsense. Unlike the top Aussie players, they are available for the entire duration. In fact, West Indian Kemar Roach, a Deccan Chargers buy, will miss the first two games. That's because the Zimbabwe tour of West Indies gets over on March 14 while IPL 3 begins on March 12.  The second Deccan Chargers game will be held on March 14.
 
Another gentleman was heard mouthing that the Pakistanis were not chosen because this was a short auction. There were too few players to be bought, he said. This logic doesn't hold either. The truth is that the owners spent sums as high as $720,000 and $610,000 for the likes of Parnell and Roach, while ignoring Aamer and Gul. Are we saying that the former two are better bowlers than Aamer (who is also emerging as a handy bat) and Gul? Or that the Pakistanis are not even worth $100,000? And have we forgotten that Afridi was the man of the series in the T20 World Cup 2009.
 
One logic being offered is that franchisees were not keen to have Pakistani players because there is an element of uncertainty involving them. Simply put, the relationship between the two countries is already edgy and could always get worse. In that case, the Pakistani players might go back. So why take the trouble?
 
Even this argument is specious. Sure, nobody would want to invest a huge amount in a 'risky' player. But then isn't investing over $750,000 in Keiron Pollard any less risky? What's the guarantee he will succeed? What about investing $750,000-plus in Bond, once a great bowler, now extremely injury prone. Let us not forget he's currently injured too. Besides, he Read more...

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As fate would have it, on the day Ireland announced they would formally apply to the ICC for full-member status, New Zealand gave them every reason to feel confident. They couldn’t do any worse, could they?

You can almost see the Irish delegation compiling a DVD nasty of New Zealand’s 138-run rout at the hands of Pakistan in the Abu Dhabi desert as evidence for inclusion.

It was Ireland, after all, who sent the Pakistanis packing from the 2007 World Cup.

New Zealand’s loss yesterday has little relevance in the grand scheme of things - just another one-day international in a crowded calendar - but it has rubbed out much of the goodwill accrued from their run to the final of the Champions Trophy in South Africa last month.

Fingers have predictably pointed in the direction of the coach, or lack thereof. New Zealand comfortably accounted for the same opposition one month ago with Andy Moles at the helm, although that argument conveniently ignores the fact that Vettori was effectively running the cutter at that point, Moles having lost the confidence of the dressing room.

In fact, the whole dressing room strife as a hurdle to success argument was kneecapped by Shahid Afridi, the Pakistan allrounder who put the shake into Sheikh Zayed Stadium.

This is the same Afridi who had recently dominated headlines in Pakistan because of his supposed rift with captain Younis Khan over (if you believe the desert telegraph) his desire to be one-day captain.

Yesterday he smote 70 from 50 deliveries, then came within an inch of a hat-trick when befuddling New Zealand’s lower middle order. All that controversy must have really played havoc with his “head space”.

No, the coaching debacle is too convenient a scapegoat. The real reason for the calamitous performance was that when the blowtorch was applied NZ’s batsmen again melted Read more…

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When you bowl as inconsistently as the Indians did at Centurion on Saturday, it is bound to cost you. To go down by as many as 54 runs against an inspired Pakistan also makes advancing in the tournament that much more difficult, especially given that it is the Australians who are up next. Being the No 1 team in the world, the pressure was on the Indians and as a consequence they seemed more than a bit nervous.

The worst part was that the inconsistency in the bowling pervaded right through the innings. Ashish Nehra was the stand out bowler but he had no support, not even with the new ball. Both RP Singh and Ishant Sharma seemed to lack in confidence and in a crucial game, the last thing you want to be worrying about is your rhythm when running in.

It didn’t help the Indian cause that Harbhajan Singh had a total off day. He didn’t seem to have hit the right pace to bowl at. Whenever he was slow through the air, he drifted down leg and as and when he tried the quicker trajectory he was wide of off stump and even short. Perhaps, the 25-over wait before he was brought on had an effect.

The spinners bowled too short unlike their Pakistani counterparts. Both Shahid Afridi and Saeed Ajmal got the ball well up and thus got purchase from the surface. What also helped them were a couple of bold decisions that went against Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Suresh Raina. When Simon Taufel is around, you do expect these decisions. Let me put it this way, on such occasions, the bowler is not unhappy if the benefit is given to the batsmen and his appeal is turned down.

The Indian chase was jolted straightway when young Mohd Aamer got rid of Sachin Tendulkar. Also, when you are chasing so many, run outs are the last thing you need. Gautam Gambhir was batting like a dream but his effort to get back to the crease was poor. It showed Read more…

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CONCERNING the doosra, Australia is thinking of turning the other way.

The finger spinner’s wrong-’un had been thought a physiological impossibility until the International Cricket Council began bending the rules to accommodate the bending of the arms. At present, the allowable deviation is 15 per cent.

But at a spin-bowling summit in Brisbane last month, a coterie of former Test spinners decided that they would not teach the doosra to young Australian bowlers because, in their collective opinion, it offends the laws of the game.

Writing in the Adelaide Review, off-spinning great Ashley Mallett said: ‘‘There was unanimous agreement that the off-spinner’s ‘other-one’, the doosra, should not be coached in Australia. I have never seen anyone actually bowl the doosra. It has to be a chuck. Until such time as the ICC declares that all manner of chucking is legal in the game of cricket, I refuse to coach the doosra. All at the spin summit agreed.’’

‘‘All’’ included leg-spinners Shane Warne, Stuart MacGill, Jim Higgs, Terry Jenner and Peter Philpott, offies Gavin Robertson and Mallett, as well as Australian chairman of selectors Read more…

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I am off this week to commentate on the highly anticipated series in Sri Lanka where Pakistan will lock horns with the hosts. It should be a fascinating encounter following the elevated status both teams have enjoyed after their recent success in the ICC World Twenty20.

That success aside, most poignantly it is the resumption of rivalry between these two teams following that despicable day on the third of March when the visiting Sri Lankans were subjected to the unthinkable and were astonishingly attacked by gunmen outside the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore. That resumption in itself is reason for celebration.

An air of expectancy will permeate throughout the series as both teams strive to claim the ascendency but another aspect will be grabbing my attention. Those of you who have read my missives over the past years know that I am a firm believer that cricket is a game best played when played instinctively. Read more…

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The only time the word ‘consistency’ and Pakistan cricket can be referred in the same sentence is when one is alluding to inconsistency! Add that fact to a format that is as unpredictable as Sachin Tendulkar’s next injury, and political upheavals back home that has disallowed the team from too much exposure to the sport, the expectancy from the team to perform well would have gone down like a sky-diver trying another of his manoeuvre.

But Shahid Afridi’s rediscovery of his batting prowess, and his christening of being the best spinner in the country today, along with a trace of an easy draw and a perennial South African habit of embracing the art of choking at the most inopportune of moments has taken the team to their second successive finals of the ICC World T20. Ironically, two consecutive efforts in the finals of this format smack of anything but inconsistency, an ample proof of the fact the tag of favourites is only on the paper in this format; nothing more.

To be fair to the Proteas, it was only incidental that the match was a knock-out one. Against them was a team which looked to have got up from the right enough side of the bed, and to everyone’s surprise had had all their star performers do their act with aplomb. So, while Afridi finally managed to discover the difference between the willow and the handle of his bat, Umar Gul kept firing the white cherry in those areas from where the batsmen find it most difficult to launch their missiles. Saeed Ajmal may have been hauled up in front of the match referee but he continues to make life miserable for his batting counterparts at the other end as most willow-wielders have failed to distinguish between the variety of deliveries he possesses in his armory. Read more…

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About a fortnight ago when I wrote the blog, Why Pakistan must win Twenty20 World Cup, I was flooded with colourful abuses. An overwhelming majority of respondents labelled me "unpatriotic."  Many appeared convinced that India was going to win the World Cup and that Pakistan will be knocked out in the first round.

They had their reasons, I guess. Some were political and had little to do with cricket. But for a variety of reasons, many genuinely believed that Pakistan wasn't going to put up a good show. To begin with, Younis Khan and company hadn't seen much of international cricket in recent times. That apart, none of them had played in IPL2. Even in the practice games, the team hardly inspired confidence.

So how come Pakistan is playing Sunday's final while MS Dhoni's million dollar boys nurse their wounds. Let us try to analyse:

1. Unlike us, Pakistan improved with every game: Younis Khan and his men looked rusty in the warm-up matches. But rather than being dismissive or cocky, they worked on their shortcomings... Read more...

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Pakistan produced a clinical performance to qualify for a second consecutive World Twenty20 semi-final. Tougher challenges lie ahead but Younis Khan will be pleased to have avoided a potential banana skin.

As with other minnows who do not play regular international cricket, Ireland’s bowlers posed more of a challenge than their batsmen. Boyd Rankin, in particular, troubled Pakistan with his pace and bounce.

Nonetheless, a solid if unspectacular performance ensured that Pakistan posted a total that was way beyond Ireland. Kamran Akmal was the backbone of the effort, with Shahzaib Hasan, Shahid Afridi, and Abdul Razzaq playing handy cameos.

Still, there should be some disappointment that Pakistan failed to post a bigger total. The current batting approach is short of ingenuity and invention, which is something of a surprise from a Pakistani team. Read more…

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