Evolve or become extinct

Pakistan sports mounted to its zenith in the early nineties when the country proudly held the world titles in cricket, hockey, squash and even snooker. It was also the time when Pakistan won its last Olympic medal - a hockey bronze - that earned it a place on the medals’ table of the 1992 Games in Barcelona. Only 64 nations won a medal or more in the Games and Pakistan was one of them. The solitary bronze was mourned as a failure but at that time we didn’t realize that the worst was yet to come.

Those were the days when some of the greatest legends of Pakistan sports were still in action. From Imran Khan and Javed Miandad in cricket to Shahbaz Ahmed in hockey, the skies of Pakistan sports were dotted with the brightest of stars. And then there was the world-beating duo of Jahangir Khan and Jansher Khan. Even Mohammad Yousuf, the wily old man of Pakistan snooker, was at his peak.

It was truly a golden period in the history of Pakistan sports — or so it seemed.

Roughly during those years, something was happening in the world of sports which we didn’t care to take much notice of. Simply put, they were adding more and more science to sport in the bid to turn sportspersons into sports machines. While we continued to rely heavily on our skills (we thought we were more gifted than the others) our competition (in sports like hockey and squash) was learning the importance of equally important factors like speed and stamina. It was paying attention to the importance of analytics, learning from the Americans and their sabermetrics. If you have read ‘The Moneyball’ by Michael Lewis you would know what I’m talking about.

In a nutshell, our hockey and squash players remained stuck in whatever they had been doing for years even as their competitors embraced newer ideas to make themselves fitter and faster and in the end — better. We just allowed that to happen partly because of complacency and partly because people running our sports, baring a few exceptions, were mostly joy-riders who were there for the perks. That’s why it was hardly surprising that within a short span, Pakistan declined from being the world’s best hockey team to a side that even failed to qualify for the Olympic Games. Similar was the fall of squash. There was a time when Pakistan would enjoy the presence of five or even six of their players in the world top-ten rankings. Today, they don’t even have a single one in the top-50.

I’m afraid to say that something similar is happening to our cricket, at least in the limited-over versions of the game.

There are plenty of reasons why Pakistan’s cricket was shielded from disaster even as its hockey and squash slumped. Primarily, cricket was and remains too popular in this country to suffer such catastrophic fate. Relatively speaking, there is a lot of money in cricket. While hockey and squash players struggle to make ends meet, our national cricketers are millionaires. Then as a sport, cricket remained steeped in its tradition and was slow in embracing change. The Test format, for example, hasn’t changed much. They still wear whites and take lunch and tea breaks during the course of a day’s play. That said, cricket is slowly but surely getting its fair share of change in the two newer formats - One-day and Twenty20 Internationals. The advent of the 20-over version has accelerated the process of change and somehow just like their hockey and squash cousins, Pakistan’s cricketers and the people who run the sport, have failed to catch up.

It was quite evident that the T20 version was a big hit with the fans once the inaugural World Twenty20 championship in South Africa in 2007 was played in front of huge audiences. Then, Pakistan were quickly established as a top T20 team with the likes of Australia, South Africa and England seemingly caught unprepared for the slam-bang version. But those teams didn’t waste much time in devising a winning recipe. It was clear that T20 was a different ball game altogether. It needed players with the "see ball, hit ball" approach. You just didn’t need to know how to time the ball but also to bludgeon it - at will. You needed more and more batsmen who had a six-hitting ability. You needed bowlers who could bat. You needed sharp fielders who would save runs and grab even half chances.

Pakistan couldn’t do it. As a result their place in the T20 rankings slumped. The worst part for them is that the 20-over format has also hastened the evolution of One-day Internationals. More and more teams have taken their T20-like aggressive approach to the 50-over game and excelled because of it.

Pakistan will have to follow suit. Evolve or become also-rans in the cricket world like they did in hockey and squash.

But can they?

Of course they can. I was in England when Pakistan were hammered by the hosts in the first four game of the ODI series. At Trent Bridge, I was a bit amused when Pakistan appeared clueless in the face of an English onslaught that finally resulted in a record-breaking 444 in the third ODI. I was amused because it could easily have been the other way round had Pakistan been able to capitalise on their early gains in the T20 format. They could have easily built up on what was then a solid batting line-up and potent bowling attack. In the inaugural T20 World Cup, their batting line-up included the likes of Shahid Afridi, Imran Nazir, Misbah-ul-Haq and Mohammad Hafeez. On the sidelines they had big-hitters like Abdul Razzaq. But instead of getting better, Pakistan descended into a shell from where they have yet to really come out.

I believe they can change because the basic ingredients are still there, a fact that was aptly underlined when Pakistan ended their otherwise dismal limited-overs series with victories in the last ODI in Cardiff and the one-odd T20 game in Manchester.

To raise their graph by being more consistent, Pakistan will have to change their approach towards the two white-balls formats.

Players like Azhar Ali will have to quickly reinvent themselves or make way for others who can score better and faster. There is a lot of criticism against Azhar with many questioning his place in the ODI squad but I believe that he can prove them wrong. However, time is not on his side. Azhar has a decent average of around 40 but most of his ODI runs have come against weaker bowling sides like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. His strike rate is less than 75, which is unacceptable in ODI these days.

Players like Azhar will need men like head coach Mickey Arthur and batting coach Grant Flower to help in their bid for reinvention. Players like Sharjeel Khan will need even greater help. The onus is both on the players and their coaches. Pakistan desperately need to change and change fast because the clock is ticking.

Khalid Hussain is Editor Sports of The News

khalidhrajgmail.com