BOMBAY, 3 October 2003 — The good news for international cricket is that South Africa revised their decision not to tour Pakistan and will now be going ahead with the tour albeit with a rescheduled itinerary.
Safety and security of players has to be paramount of course but really apart from Australia and New Zealand, which part of the cricketing world is truly safe nowadays.
To cancel a tour because of a bomb blast in a city in the subcontinent is hypocritical when, in the past tours have taken place of England when the IRA was causing real mayhem there.
Then again tourists to South Africa are told umpteen times to be careful not to go out alone in the cities at night or for that matter to be extremely careful during the day.
So how is South Africa safer than the subcontinent for after all if fate wills it then one can be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
The one team that one will understand canceling tours, if they are not entirely satisfied about the safety and security aspect, is New Zealand for they have been in cities when explosions have taken place in close proximity to where they have been staying.
So if they are nervous and wary then one can totally understand the way they feel.
After the manner in which New Zealand beat India earlier in the year Indian cricket lovers are hoping that India can give them as good as they got.
That might not be easy for if one goes by the way the Kiwis played in Sri Lanka after the World Cup then India may be in for a much tougher time than what many anticipate.
Sure the Kiwi bowlers will find it much more difficult to bowl the Indians out from when they met the last time in New Zealand.
The Indian batsmen had a miserable time there but their bowlers were not able to exploit the conditions though they were so much seamer-friendly.
Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble will find it a lot easier to bowl on Indian pitches and the manner in which they bowled in the recent Irani Trophy game bodes well for the team.
Though Kumble took a bit of stick he is a major threat on Indian pitches.
Harbhajan Singh was quite superb in the Irani game and his tussle with Tendulkar in both the Challenger and the Irani games was most absorbing.
At no time could the Little Champion dominate the offie and the variety that was displayed would have warmed the cockles of the hearts of the quartet of spinners of the 1960s and 1970s.
Sairaj Bahutule also did his chances no harm with a fine all round performance as did Romesh Pawar and though it is unfair to compare it is good to see that there are viable alternatives.
Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman have put some runs on the board but the form of Sehwag, Bangar and the skipper Ganguly is a bit worrying though they are the kind of players who are just one innings away from finding the ball more in the middle of the bat rather than the edges.
New Zealand’s strength is in their opening attack even in the absence of the genuinely quick Shane Bond and that’s why it is important for the openers to strike form and ensure that Dravid and Tendulkar do not come in when the ball is hard, new and doing a bit.
With Australia coming down after the two Tests against New Zealand to participate in a Triangular One day series it is important for the Indians to beat New Zealand in the Tests.
Of course the format will be different but from the confidence point of view it would make a huge difference to the Indian team to win the two Tests.
Then with the Indians traveling to Australia later in the year to play four Tests anything less than a good win against the Kiwis will not do from the morale point of view for if they can’t win a home series how can they be seriously expected to win a Test series abroad and that too against the World Champions in their own backyard.
They have to do what a new look Pakistani team has done to Bangladesh beating them in all the three Tests and the five One Dayers that followed the Test series.
Pakistan won the third Test by a solitary wicket after winning the first two quite comfortably.
While Inzamam-ul Haq played with great determination to take Pakistan to that close victory it was the lack of experience of Bangladesh that also was a major factor.
Unless you know how to deliver the knockout punch you are not going to finish the opponent off.
Bangladesh has never won anything so far and thus did not know how to win a match, which was within their grasp.
Pakistanis may not be aware but their victory in that game also silenced those who were looking to point fingers at them for match fixing if they had lost.
That unfortunately is the curse that the subcontinent will have to live with for a long time though there have been self-confessed culprits elsewhere as well.
Tell me if Pakistan had lost a Test match after scoring 484 runs like South Africa scored in the last Test at the Oval wouldn’t there have been eyebrows raised? Nobody questions other teams, just like in the 1999 World Cup people only talked about Pakistan’s loss to Bangladesh and not a word was spoken about South Africa’s loss to Zimbabwe the previous day.
Don’t forget it was South Africa’s first loss to Zimbabwe ever just as Pakistan lost for the first time to Bangladesh the next day.
There were demands for inquiry into Pakistan’s loss but nobody questioned South Africa’s loss the previous day.
One could give some other examples of such surprise losses by other teams but again no eyebrows were raised.
It is because of this flawed perception that it was important for Pakistan to win that Test as also the one-dayers against Bangladesh.
What is heartening to hear about is the gesture of the Pakistani players who have decided to put aside part of their fees to benefit the former players who have played for Pakistan when fees were not as good as they are today.
Should the Indian players do likewise? Perhaps they should for at least then no former cricketer who loses his monthly pay packet from the job he has with BCCI will go out and make wild, baseless allegations against others when his real grouse is the loss of the regular pay packet he gets from the board.
