Pakistan cricket, it seems, has hit rock bottom. Earlier this week, they suffered a heavy 3-0 defeat against minnows Bangladesh. As criticism mounted on the Pakistan team, a stern voice in the form of their former captain Misbah-ul-Haq spoke in support of the team.
In recent times, some men heading Pakistan cricket have shown little sense. Misbah is quite the contrast. And he reads the game differently from others.
After Pakistan’s thrashing, Misbah who still leads the side in Test cricket, spoke sense. “If we want to give a new look to the one-day team, then this defeat will have to be tolerated. If we don’t panic and give this team some time it will mature within the next two years. So we must not look at the results,” Misbah said.
Only four players, who featured in the ICC Cricket World Cup, have been retained in Pakistan’s ODI squad that played Bangladesh as they look to groom for the future.
Sri Lanka, like Pakistan, failed to go beyond the quarter-final stages of the World Cup and they will soon be involved in a bilateral series against Pakistan. What course of action the Sri Lankan selectors will take remains to be seen.
Embracing the Pakistan way is a tough choice. Poor results will bring enormous pressure on the selectors. Passionate fans want to see their team doing well and defeats will be hard to take. But if the selectors are looking at the bigger picture, bitter decisions will have to be taken. But whether they have the guts to go that way remains to be seen.
Where the Sri Lankans have an edge over their Pakistani counterparts is that they have several established batsmen in their ranks. If the Sri Lankans were to adopt similar thinking, the key will be to make up your mind as to which players are going to be part of the 2019 World Cup in England.
Still, it doesn’t guarantee anything. The current selectors may adopt one policy and once their tenure is over and the next set take on in 12 months time, we may see serious changes in policies. That’s why the Sanath Jayasuriya selection panel benefited immensely. Jayasuriya’s selection panel was given an extension after finishing the one year term. They did mess up closer to the World Cup selection doing too many experiments, which must have been done long before the competition. One of the things that need to be looked at is whether longer tenure for selectors will help.
Jayasuriya has taken a lot of flak for the changes he did for the quarter-final clash against South Africa, where Sri Lanka suffered a humiliating defeat. But the manner in which Sri Lanka’s expert batsmen succumbed against South Africa’s spin bowlers indicate that the blame shouldn’t be placed at his doorstep. For a change, on that fateful day in Sydney, the Sri Lankans choked.
Jayasuriya did get certain things awfully wrong. But he hardly gets any credit for the commitment shown for his role and his astute planning. He spent long hours planning and speaking to some of his mentors on the way forward. His commitment to the role needs to be appreciated.
From Sri Lanka’s original World Cup squad, five players were injured. Jayasuriya was smart enough to have a replacement standby just in case something happened and it proved to be handy.
When he assumed duties as Chairman of Selectors, all hell broke loose as people suggested that he was going to start a witch-hunt against the team’s senior players. But the truth is far from it. He developed a special bond with the likes of Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene. Sanga was going to completely give up after the World Cup and it was Jayasuriya who convinced him to stay on till August.
This is not to say that Jayasuriya’s two-year tenure was perfect. Being a politician, he obliged many requests that came his way through his political colleagues and bosses. As a result, sleepwalkers represented the country at the highest level. Players from the Ports Authority benefited to a certain extent. The selection of Jeewan Mendis into the World Cup squad was questioned by Muttiah Muralitharan as that selection came out of the blues. But the good things he did hardly get a mention.
There were plenty of highs during his tenure such as triumph in World T-20 and beating England in a Test series for the first time in England.
