(a version of this article was published yesterday in Dawn and can be found here)
Dear Imran Farhat,
So, you’re back. I’d tell you it’s good to see you again, but it’s not. You must be over the moon, what with being picked for all three formats. Why, you must think you’re a regular Kevin Pietersen, eh?
Well you’re not, Imran. I haven’t forgotten who you are. You may be a year or so older. You may be a day or so wiser. But underneath all that flash, beneath all that ICL bravado, you’re still the same guy who’s going to perpetuate our opening problem. You’re still the same batsman who miscues an ambitious pull shot. You’re the same player who will attempt a cross-batted hoick across the line of the ball for no reason other than your own ego. And you’re the same guy who helps perfect the opposing side’s slip-catching skills.
I’ll give you one thing Imran: you must be one helluva husband.
Your wife probably has only good things to say about you to her parents, because not many father-in-laws would accost the coach of the international cricket team, berating him for not selecting his precious son-in-law out of, ironically, bias. Even fewer father-in-laws would threaten the national selectors for not picking the apple of his daughter’s eye for the Pakistan team. But I suppose that’s the kind of class act your dad-in-law, Mohammad Ilyas, is, eh? And how does the PCB choose to handle an individual who allegedly threatened to “start a war” against their selection panel? Make him part of the selection panel, of course. I suppose their skewed logic is that those primed to do the most damage to the system should be placed in a position of power within that system so they have a stake in its survival. One can’t really blame the PCB for such logic since the apex of the Federal Government’s been applying that strategy as well. Wonder how that’s working out?
And what was Mr. Ilyas’s first order of business? Restore you, Imran, to your “rightful” position, of course. Most might say that something fishy’s afoot. But not me. I think its one big, freakish coincidence. It’s not like your numbers don’t justify your inclusion. A healthy average of barely above 30 in both major forms of the game make you a shoe-in for any Wisden World XI team. And your discipline? Exemplary. Some called you a crybaby for phoning up a selector in the middle of the night and demanding to know why you’d been dropped. But I figured you just wanted to say “hi”. Apparently it got so heated that you were fined for dissent. It doesn’t stop there. When you jumped ship for the ICL you took a few more shots at the PCB for assassinating your career, as if your lazy wafts outside the off-stump weren’t the true culprits.
So kudos, Imran – you can’t bat competently, but I’m sure you are one exceptional family man. I can just see the case Mohammad Ilyas made on your behalf in front of the selection committee. Sure my son-in-law has no patience outside the off-stump. But he always asks my daughter how her day went when they’re on the dinner table. Granted he will give his wicket away carelessly, thereby enhancing the pressure on our other batsmen. But apparently he volunteers to do the dishes on Tuesdays and Saturdays. And his lack of foot movement is completely offset by the fact that he lets his wife handle the remote when they’re watching television.
The fact is Imran, you’re back and there’s no use crying about it. Just show up, make your random 30 odds and scratchy half centuries, and then leave us be. Pakistan cricket is at a very important stage right now. We’ve been deprived of home games and yet we’ve managed to win a World Cup and make it to the semi-finals of the Champions Trophy. We’ve got a couple of young players in Umar Akmal and Mohammad Aamer who have it in them to ensure a very bright future for our team. And what’s more, we as a nation want revenge this time around. Beating New Zealand was supposed to be a sure thing, like it’s alwaysbeen, which is what made it all the more traumatizing to lose to them in the Champions Trophy. We don’t want to beat them. We want to maul them. I’m sure you figure yourself to be the man to do the mauling. Sadly, you’re not. You’re not even the original, unreliable Imran. Now that kid could maul. Pity about the temperament, though.
So enjoy yourself, Imran. Don’t get too comfortable and please, don’t do any lasting damage while you’re out there. When you’re in the nets, don’t drive a ball straight at Saeed Ajmal and cause him bodily harm. He’s the best thing to happen to Pakistan off-spin bowling since Saqlain Mushtaq and we’ll need him in the tests against New Zealand. Furthermore, if you’re ever in the locker room and arguing with Shahid bhai about whether youngsters like Umar Akmal respect you, don’t grab a bat and start swinging at Umar. Akmal’s a national treasure. Furthermore, you might meet two guys while you’re training with the team: Ahmed Shehzad (though he’s not selected) and Fawad Alam. Both of them have the potential to be extremely successful and productive batsmen for Pakistan. So steer clear of them and don’t offer them any pearls of wisdom such as: “always charge down the track when the ball is full and swinging”. Just point them both towards the direction of Younis Khan and you’ll have done your bit for Pakistan cricket.
You know Imran, you may very well have a good series, maybe even comparable to that glory tour against the same team a few years back. You’re even capable of a test century or two. But you’re not a long term solution. You’re just another in the line of ICL alums whom the selection committee insists on trotting out even though they forget that they were dropped for poor performance in the first place.
With victories in the warm-up games followed by two wins from two games in the league stages, Pakistan are at their peak entering this tournament. The team needs to mantain its intensity by thoroughly beating a severely weakened and impotent Australian one-day side and go into the semi-final stages with a 100% win record which would be an added boost to their confidence.
How a Pakistani cricket fan SHOULD think:
Haaaaalllp! We have victories in the warm-up games and two wins from two games in the league stages and risk going into the semis UNDEFEATED!
We're so screwed.
AS things stand, we're through to the semis so why tempt fate by being ungrateful and asking for more. Temporarily resting on one's laurels is a severely underappreciated form of leisure. Look at it this way, if the Aussies beat us, Pakistan and Australia go through to the final and India get knocked out completely. How sweet would that be?
More importantly, a loss to Australia ensures we get a defeat out of our system to satisfy the law of averages. Look, we're not capable of having a perfect track record and we need to get a loss out of the way as soon as possible before it occurs at a time when it can hurt us. Our players are at their worst when they are in a comfort zone (except Younis Khan who always tries hard and expects the most from himself no matter whether its a crunch game or dead rubber). Once we lose, we'll be startled out of our complacency and will be less likely to slack off in the semis and the final, since we ARE making the finals.
Imran KIND OF had it right when he said we play at our best when we're cornered tigers. But we need to get cornered first for those fighting instincts to come to the fore. Otherwise we're like a kind of gay tiger who stumbled onto his first kill (which was injured to begin with) and was lucky to get his second since the prey almost turned the tables on him.
If Australia beat us and India beat West Indies by a VERY substantial margin that MAY mean India go through to the semis with us. Thats the tricky part. Because then, if we get to the finals, we might meet India there and I dont think we as a nation can handle that. I know I cant. And I don't envy our chances in beating India twice in a major tournament.
Plus, the Indian cricket team is a more like us than they're given discredit for. If they're doing badly in the early stages of a tournament, they're more likely to win it under the guise of underdogs since they wont have the enormous pressure of expectations their unreasonable country puts on them. Right now, I can console myself with the fact that we beat India. That'll be all for naught if they come back to win the tournament.
Also, lets hope we meet New Zealand in the semis. A good luck charm if there ever was one. Mark Guptill zindabad. Incidentally, if we're ever stupid enough to declare war against India, we should first first invade New Zealand and shoot a few nukes down there. Whenever we kick kiwi ass, we always go on to do greater things.
I think I've been waiting my entire life to hear something like this:
Lifelong thanks to OQ for alerting me to this.
I have a theory about this song: If you're from Pakistan and you dont like it or enjoy it, then the odds are that you're probably a bad person who is unhappy in his/her life, incredibly bitter, jaded and cynical and most probably a drag to be around.
If India does manage to beat us, I think this is the only song which could cheer me up.
Q: When can you tell a Pakistani player has the potential to be a breakout star?
A: When Younis Khan makes it very clear he wants to rape him.
Check out Younis's expression in the photo above. If that look doesn't spell sodomy for Alam, I dont know what does. Subtlety aint one of Younis's strong suits, and there's nothing delicate about that fiery gaze he's directing at Alam. YK is sizing FA up. YK likes what he sees. YK is going to go to town on that boy after the end of the innings.
And why not?
You see, I'm not rehashing the old "pathans are ravenous gays" jokes, which are pretty tired. Neither am I implying that Younis is romantically interested in Fawad.
Rather, I'm talking about the ultimate test of character Younis subjects all emerging Pakistani cricketers to and this test is usually carried out in a roughly horizontal position (emphasis on "rough"). You see, the mark of any good player is the mark Younis leaves on his body. Misbah got it. Akmal got it. Afridi kind of gave it right back to Younis. But let no one accuse Younis of being an indiscriminate lover. Mohammad Sami never got it, even though many felt he had the potential. Sami wishes YK would have given it to him, but Sami could never have handled it.
Unlike Alam.
Fawad Alam may very well be the missing link in our batting line-up; the solution to all our problems. But far be it for Younis to simply celebrate him as such. Younis is not given to faint praise. He's seen them come and go. He's been around for guys like Mohammad Asif who were trumpeted as the second coming of Christ but couldn't handle a night with YK - turning to drugs and steroids to relieve the pain from that one night YK tested his mettle.
And if anybody thinks I'm talking out of my ass, check out Sidharth Mongia'sconfirmation of YK's special test:
Younis told him (Fawad) he had got something for him, which he would show him in the dressing room.
If Alam is ever to make it as a player, he has to grit his teeth and survive Younis's test. If he truly wants to convince himself and the world that he's for real, he has to withstand the thrust of Younis's argument. In order to earn the respect of his team and his country, he has to match Younis pound for pound. He has to let Younis drive his point in. Alam shouldn't approach this test half assed, but rather be very anal about the fact that Younis give him the full monty.
I hope this letter finds you well, and by “well” I do mean in inexorable pain and mental agony.
My name is PakFan69. Do not mistake my pseudonym as some kind of attempt to hide my identity. Nothing would make me happier than to tell you who I am, arrange a meeting between us, and then shoot you through your spinal chord. However, I speak to you today not as an individual, but as part of a larger collective. My words are those of hundreds upon thousands of Pakistani cricket fans - hence I have chosen the alias “PakFan”. As for an explanation of the “69” part, you can ask your sister about that one.
Salman, I don’t really know how to begin this. Most of me just wants to barrage you with obscenities and insults and point out how you have absolutely no talent and have chiefly contributed to some of our heaviest losses. Yet another part of me wants to actually try to understand you. How could God create someone so devoid of talent and backbone. Surely you must have SOME redeeming feature. I don’t think it’s possible for someone to be as waste of a bunch of atoms as you. If there isn’t anything worthwhile within you, surely you would have committed suicide by now to put an end to your wretched life, right? However, a very small part of me also wants to help you Salman; to nurture you. It’s a very small part, but its there nonetheless. I want to give you a guiding hand and help you through this difficult time and try to make a man out of you. I want to do all this because when you do make something of yourself after years of trial and error, I want to be there to take you to the ground we used to visit to perfect your technique and hire two gargantuan Afghanis to gang rape and sodomise the hell out of you and, when your sore-assed body crawls over to me, gasping out “whyyy, PakFan69 bhai, why”, I can pull out the revolver with the one bullet I’ve been saving for the last couple of years for this moment and shoot you through the face with it. A small part of me would do this, Salman, because I’m assuming that kind of betrayal and death would be more painful and heartwrenching for you than anything anyone else could think of. The fact that a father figure has that kind of contempt for you would conclusively make you realize what an overall shit you are before you passed over to the next life. But, like I said, only a small part of me wants to do all that because it would take too much time.
Salman, remember when you started out your career? People… it almost nauseates me to say this… people regarded you as the next SAEED ANWAR. Its kind of like saying that Jesse Jackson is the next God. No, that analogy is not apt because Jesse Jackson has done okay for himself in his narrow sphere. Its kind of like saying Dinara Safinais the next Steffi Graf. Again not totally apt because Dinara’s won a few titles and is the Number 1 tennis player in the world. Im having trouble finding a good analogy because I cant think of any instance where someone who is such an abject failure is compared to one of the greats in his field. Usually, the person being compared has SOME redeeming quality. But, as OBA rightly pointed out, you’re good at nothing.
Why were you touted as the next Saeed Anwar? Basically because you’re a left hander. That’s it, Salman. NOTHING else about you justifies that comparison. I adored Saeed Anwar and, right off the bat (heh), I felt personally injured at the comparison being made. Saeed was beautiful to watch. Whether he was driving through the off, or flicking through leg, he was one of those players who wasn’t capable of playing an ugly shot. You seem to have it in reverse – a graceful Salman Butt shot is the Haley’s Comet of world cricket. You can only, ONLY, play through the off side. And that too, only through certain gaps and channels in that off-side. Hell, I could draw a couple of lines through the offside field which would perfectly match the trajectory of your strokes.
The comparisons to Anwar were given weight by your record against India. Sure, you’ve scored a couple of hundreds against India. Does that make you good? Ijaz Ahmedhad a good record against Australia, and where is he now? Having an asthama attack behind a jail cell on charges of fraud and waiting for his conjugal visit from Salim Malik’s sister. Even that frightening outcome would be too good for you.
The whole world took notice of you when you scored a hundred and a half century IN Australiaagainst an attack which included Glen McGrath and Shane Warne. Those greats didn’t deserve to have a gandu like you score runs against them. A lot of very intelligent cricket fans thought that this was it – finally one half of our opening conundrum has been solved. Finally, we have another world class batsman in our line-up.
But I wasn’t fooled. I recognized you for the no-talent waste of space that you are. You were dropped once in that innings in Sydney and had two close lbw shouts turned down. Plus, your century came after we had lost the series and you had no pressure on you. And hey, every fucking bharwa dog has his day. That was yours. Even Vanilla Ice had one hit song. Where the fuck is he now?
Over the course of your career, you’ve actually ADDED to your shortcomings when most people try to improve on them. You’ve managed to become the worst fielder in our team, which is saying something for a Pakistani unit. Kamran Akmal must love having you around because the number of catches you let slip through your gay fingers takes the attention off him. Isn’t human existence supposed to follow a pattern of development – don’t we add to our skills or refine the existing ones? You seem to be deteriorating as time passes by. You’re the antithesis of a fine wine.
And now here we are. Our first test match after months and our first competitive game after the heady victory at the T20 World Cup. Bravo Salman, you managed to spoil both occasions for us. There was no need for that shot after Yousuf had just gotten out. Don’t you know you’re incapable of taking the attack to good bowlers and playing outside your limited comfort zone? And, in the space of a few seconds, you’ve extinguished most of the euphoria flowing out of the T20 triumph.
Tell me Salman, make me understand how a senior batsman in the team with 5 years of experience can play with such utter disregard for the circumstances around him. Explain to me why a guy who is supposedly the most educated guy in our team refuses to learn from his mistakes and doesnt put in the hard hours in correcting the substantial glitches in his technique. I don’t get it Salman – doesn’t being such an asshole affect you? When you wake up in the morning and look at your face in the mirror, what stops you from taking your razor blade and slitting your own throat as final penance for the embarrassments you’ve subjected Pakistan cricket to?
Salman do us all a favor and please exit the team. Currently your test and one day averages sit at 28 and 38 respectively and in the last year your average is probably half that. So, by your own standards, you’d still be going out at the top of your game. You seem to be sort of educated so maybe you can get a desk job of some sort. Im sure there is SOMEthing you can do in life. It’s just not cricket.
Kind regards,
PakFan69.
p.s. I also blame you for the death of Bob Woolmer.
In his biography of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Stanley Wolpert described an incident which occurred a few days after the landmark Lahore Resolution was passed by the Muslim League in March 1940.
An unnamed party clerk came upon the Quaid in the hallways of the Lahore HQ of the League and ceased the occasion to sound out his pessimism and misgivings regarding the Two-Nation theory and establishment of an independent state. It seemed impossible in the face of a strong Congrss and a League which still stood divided between its pro-Congress and pro-British factions. All the odds seemed stacked against the accomplishment of this task.
To this, the Quaid is said to have replied: “This is not a task, an assignment or a mission. This is our destiny. This is something which we were meant to have and, be it now or years from now, it is something which cannot be denied to us. It is our destiny to achieve this – we just have to wait for the right time.”
For many Muslims, the time was then.
For all Pakistani cricket fans, the time is now.
Anybody who tells you that this tournament doesn’t matter is a jackass. Anybody who disregards the importance of these matches due to the nascence of the format is short-sighted. Hell with them. We, the embattled Pakistani cricket fan, know how much this means to us. How much it has already meant to us.
I’m going to give all the pessimistic Pakistan cricket fans the benefit of the doubt by declaring this:
In the back of our minds, we all knew that there was every chance we’d get here.
I don’t know what it is about this campaign, but it’s struck all the right chords. Even when we were being thrashed in the warm-ups, our minds wandered to the “cornered tigers” speech. There was just too much going wrong with Pakistani cricket for us to simply bow out in ignominy.
Pakistani fans are a catious, conservative lot. We’ve had our hopes dashed on far too many occasions to place any concrete faith in our fortunes.
But this time it’s different.
Be it Gul’s law-of-averages defying pin-point yorkers, Afridi’s mercurial genius, Akmal’s raw brilliance, Ajmal’s understated flair, Aamir’s youthful daring, Alam’s unquestionable promise, Younis’s unpredictable canniness or whatever you want to use to describe Malik, Razzaq and Misbah. The stars have aligned for us. We feel it in our deepest recesses and it’s only our inherent culturally ingrained conservatism and cynicism which restrains us from voicing it.
This is a team of destiny. And we’re on the cusp of something incredible.
Sound familiar? In using the concept of destiny, I realize I’m borrowing a catch word/phrase from the Barcelona Football Club’s recent campaign. But when you have two of the best midfielders in the world, two of the best strikers in the world and the greatest footballer in the world at your disposal, isn’t success an inevitability rather than destiny? Barcelona did everything to put themselves in a position where they were destined to achieve some level of success.
Pakistan don’t have the luxury of circumstances. How could anything over the last two years be construed as positive steps towards a manifest destiny? Shoaib Malik captained the team into a mire. Naeem Ashraf alienated some of our best players. We’ve been rocked by constant drug scandals. A visiting team was freaking shot at. We’ve lost our status as a cricketing venue. Think about that. A powerhouse of a sport not being allowed to host any sort of international fixture. We play next to no competitive cricket for long stretches during the international calendar.
How could anyone say that getting to the T20 final is inevitable form the above facts. There’s something more to it than pure luck or chance.
It’s our destiny to be here. We deserve this. If not because of the facts I just mentioned, then because of the multitude of facts I haven’t. How the hell did a team whose followers have lost all hope, whose governing body may even have considered withdrawing it from the stage, whose country is rocked by suicide bombing and political and religious strife – how the hell did such a team get into the final.
Didn’t I just make my point? It’s our destiny.
A friend of mine is a real destiny-buff. I don’t usually buy into the whole predetermined course of events thing, but this friend has a particular approach to the concept of destiny. According to her, once you “account for karma” then one’s destiny is, pardon the circularity of the logic, inevitable. At the time, I thought it was one of the stupidest things I had ever heard. Today, on retrospect, I owe her an apology. I don’t know if I’ve interpreted her correctly, but basically, everything which has happened over the last couple of years has lead us to this moment.
Last time we left England, it was in a mixture of shame and disappointment. A major test match forfeited because a captain refused to let his country’s name be sullied. Not that it mattered anyway because sullied it was through the downfall of two of our best bowlers. We tragically lost a coach, murdered by 11 Irish upstarts. Yet we persisted. We lost Afridi as a batsman, but gained him as a bowler. There was a mass exodus towards the ICL, yet we retained Umer Gul who grew in stature. A reshuffling of the established order took place, a reliance on youth, and we were suddenly, almost unbelievably, in the finals of the first T20 World Cup. Brought there on the shoulders of a middle order batsman who contrived to somehow ensure defeat just when you sensed victory was destined. But it wasn’t our time then. The story after that you know. And now we’re back where we started. Back where things started going wrong for Pakistan cricket in the first place.
THAT, is fucking karma! We’re meant to come here. It’s just so damn perfect! We were meant to come here to finally put the ghosts of Darrel Hair and the Oval forfeit to rest. Hell, we even managed to vanquish the Irish on the way here. The only thing left is for Younis to promote Misbah over that fuck-up Malik and let destiny redeem him for his error last time around. It’s all falling into place. There is something about this team which will not be denied. It’s our destiny to be champions. Too much has gone wrong in the last couple of years for it to be taken away from us now.
One more thing Ms. Destiny said to me: “fate only helps those who help themselves”. Hardly an original thought, but poignant nonetheless. I know I’ve said a lot of abstract stuff about destiny, but we can’t go into the final expecting to win because we boast a phenomenal head-to-head record against the Lankans. We need to work towards achieving that destiny. This will NOT be a cakewalk by any means. If Gul is the Prince of death-bowlers, then Malinga is his younger step brother in waiting for the throne. Murali and Mendis are more than a match for Indian batsman which makes one shudder to think how anyone other than Younis will handle them. Their batting powerhouses are formidable and in Dilshan they have the best batsman of the tournament by far who will most probably kill Razzaq. The amount of runs Razzaq leaks to Dilshan and Jayasuria is key to our success because I KNOW our spinners and Gul will not disappoint. If we bowl, we need to get Jayawardene, Dilshan and Jayasuria. If we bat, we need to maximize the number of runs we get in the first couple of overs before Malinga and the spinners take over but still keep ticking along at around 7-8 an over during the middle period of the innings. Misbah needs to be sent higher up the order to account for his sins of the past. Younis has to reverse sweep the crap out of the M’s. And Afridi has to be Afridi.
It’s that simple.
Our destiny is staring us in the face. We just need to help ourselves get to it. It’s calling out to us. It wants us to claim it. This is our time.
Come what may in the final, this IS the new dawn for our team.
I fucking love Pakistan cricket.
p.s. If Sri Lanka do beat us, it doesn’t change the fact that as a nation, we are by FAR better looking than them.
p.p.s. The first paragraph on Wolpert and the Jinnah story was all a lie. I made it up to lend some gravitas to the piece. Hell, it COULD have happened.
In the 17th over of South Africa’s run chase, Younis tossed the ball to 23 year old Fawad Alam for his first over of the tournament, not to mention his first over in international cricket for 7-8 months.
If Alam had picked up a lucky wicket or two, very likely since the Saffies had to go for broke at that time, Younis’s move would have been hailed as a masterstroke. Rather than be confounded by its perplexity, we would have been awed by its creativity.
Sadly for Younis, and Alam, such an outcome didn’t come to pass. Luckily for Younis, nothing hinged on that over and Pakistan ended up with a spectacular victory against a team which used to beat us for fun even during our 99-00 heydays.
But there was much more to the rationale behind Younis’s decision than simply exploiting an opportunity for picking up cheap wickets. We all know Captain Younis has a unique approach to the game, thinking far ahead of the current situation – a Galileo of his time if you will. In his inventiveness, Younis is so far outside the box that the box is just a dot on the horizon to his maniacal eyes. His decision to bowl Alam makes perfect sense, given the circumstances and the way he gauged the situation:
1. He wanted Alam to scuff up the old ball by being hit around to facilitate reverse swing.
Its hardly rocket science. Batter a ball enough, and its bound to start swinging. The South Africans werent going for their shots and Younis needed the ball to develop some roughness in order for it to start reversing. Hell, he outright pointed out this strategy at a press conference where he bitchslapped that cry baby Vettori by reminding him that a ball could wear and tear by constantly being smacked around and being hit into the stands. And he needed a bowler who would help him accomplish that. Malik is way too senior to be sacrificed in that manner. So the onus fell on Alam. Who responded admirably under pressure to keep the run-rate down. He'll bear a lot of brunt from short sighted Pakistani fans. But he'll know that he did the job asked of him. He gave the ball every chance to reverse once it got back into Gul's hands. And Gul needed every advantage since...
2. Umer Gul was concussed.
Did anyone see Gully’s head smack the turf when he spilled a halwa catch off Aamir’s bowling. The thud on impact jerked his entire body. There’s no doubt that Gully was seeing stars, further evidenced by his lackluster first two balls. Younis didn’t want to put too much pressure on Gul’s fragile cranium at that point so he had to opt for someone else.
3. That someone else couldn’t be Shoaib Malik.
Shoaib Malik can keep the runs down when the asking rate is just around a run-a-ball or slightly more – basically, where the batsman don’t have to go out of their way to smack him around. If they’re looking for a bowler to outright hit out of the park – Malik is their man. He can’t beat the batsmen through the air. He sucks at darting the ball in. Younis was probably sure that Malik would be expensive at that point and I’m absolutely positive Malik would have leaked as many runs as Alam. Additionally, Kallis had already had a sighter of Malik’s one over, so why not just go for something new since it’s our inherent unpredictability which got us this far in the first place. Younis is always thinking two overs ahead of the match, which is why…
4. He actually gave Alam that over to warm up his throwing arm to effect those last over run-out(s).
Say you’re Younis Khan. You know your team is inches away from pulling off something special. You’re racking your brain about South African failures in the past and wondering what you can implement from those instances. Your mind harks back to the most famous South African debacle: the 1999 WC semi against the Aussies. You realize the South Africans are prone to frenzied running in the final over, making them vulnerable to sharp fielding. So you want your best fielder to be patrolling long on/off and be ready to fire in a great throw. Who’s your best fielder? You can’t trust Malik because he found his wife on the internet. You want Shahid close by getting under the batsman’s skin. Gotta be ALAM. But Younis is as cunning as he is farsighted. You don’t want to make your strategy too obvious. You need Alam to secretly warm up his arm. Here’s a thought: give him a bowl! And what’s more, that’ll give you a chance to subtly move him FROM point TO long on/off without the batsman noticing and second guessing your plan. You, Younis, are fucking brilliant!
You’re saying no normal person thinks in such convoluted terms? Well that’s why you’re sitting at some boring office job with your life beginning and ending with your family and friends. That’s why Pakistan won’t remember you and you have added nothing to society and culture. When you and I die, no one outside our circle will remember us and we’ll be forgotten after a generation. Younis will live on. Younis has made something of his life even though his family couldn’t afford to give him even a quarter of the opportunities we were privileged to have. But the few chances Younis did get, he took them. Something we didn’t have the balls to do. So 50 years from now, someone will say: “Hey, remember when Younis gave Fawad that over during the T20 World Cup? What a dick.” And someone will respond: “Hahaha, yeah that was nuts. And then he gave Alam the last over in the final against Sri Lanka and we still won that tournament. Man, I wonder if that’s what gave Alam the confidence to go ahead and score consecutive hundreds in test series verses South Africa and Australia as well as marry Shakira. Anyway, I’m off to watch President Younis’s latest address to Parliament and the Senate”.
Oh, you think the suggestion that Younis might one day lead our country politically is far-fetched do you? Well not if you consider the fact that…
5. Younis gave Fawad an over to ease communal tension in Karachi.
The facts behind this argument are as clear as day. In fact, we’re stupid not to consider it. Alam is Urdu-speaking. Younis is Pathan. Younis is all about brotherhood, love and having “fun”. Younis just wants everybody to get along, which is why the tension between the Mohajirs and Pathans in Karachi is particularly unbearable for someone like him. He feels he has to contribute to easing the hostility between the two sides which is why he gave the Urdu-speaking chap his chance in the sun. What better public display of communal togetherness than a Pathan trusting a Mohajir in a time of crisis. It’s like something out of a movie. Sure, you can turn this around and say that by putting an inexperienced Mohajir player in a pressure situation, Younis risked doing more harm than good when that player inevitably failed. Fair enough. But Younis acts on impulse. And his initial impulse is always a positive one. And if there’s one thing Pakistan has come to accept from this tournament, it’s that they’re at their best when it comes to relying on their instincts. Which brings me to my last, perhaps best, reason for bowling Alam in the last over.
6. Just go with the unpredictable flow.
Pakistan’s approach to this tournament can be likened to Christian Bale’s movie career. Everyone knows that Bale has all the natural talent in the world but he refuses to stick to the safe route of conventional studio dramas and chances his acting chops with risky roles which could break his career. “American Psycho” could have killed him. Instead, it made him Batman. But for every Batman, there is a “Reign of Fire”. For every “Machinist”, there is a “Swing Kids”. But why should he stop taking chances in the roles he chooses? He holds an eminent position in Hollywood due to most of those risks paying off so why toss the philosophy out the window.
Likewise: Pakistan. Would ANY other team have responded to a peripheral batsman’s failings by promoting him to one-down? Most teams wouldn’t have chanced Afridi as a central batsman, let alone trust him with that kind of responsibility. And I for one am glad we aren’t most teams. It’s what makes being a Pakistan cricket supporter so fucking special. It’s the one unique thing we have in sports. Our natural drama. And I’d absolutely hate it if our team became as formulaic as the Australians or the South Africans or as inflexible as England. To love Pakistan is to love the romance of chance. In a game of poker, we are the eternal first timers. Totally unpredictable; always rethinking our strategy without a clear understanding of the mechanics; capable of flashes of brilliance yet, more often than not, vulnerable to moments of stupidity. So please, take the good with the bad. If you love Pakistan cricket, the Fawad Alam decision was totally in character with the spirit we play the game with. I’m glad Younis is making moves like the Alam decision – it reinforces my belief that we’re playing cricket the best way we know how. I say open the batting on Sunday with Alam and Gul and
7. Because Salman Butt is an asshole.
Yeah I only said 6 reasons. But I’m being like Pakistan – unpredictable and impulsive. You know what IS predictable about Pakistan cricket though? Salman Butt’s lame-ass batting at the top. This guy is a bane to Pakistan cricket. He doesn’t know how to accelerate. He sucks at being a good anchor because he can’t rotate the strike. And he’s the reason Alam didn’t bowl a better over. Butt has been keeping guys like Alam out of the team for years now. If we had dropped Butt like a year back, maybe Alam would have gotten more exposure and, thereby, would have been better equipped to bowl such a crucial over. But no – the management refuses to drop Butt because he can string together a few sentences worth of English. As Afridi showed the world yesterday, you don’t need a broad vocabulary to get your message across in this game. All you need to do is be able to blow an obnoxious kiss and have at your disposal a solid, hearty “Inshallah”!
