JEDDAH, 20 April 2004 — Did Pakistan lose the One-Day International (ODI) and Test match series to India simply because India was the better team? Or was it perhaps that there were quite a few new faces on the Pakistani squad? Or were there other reasons?
The cricketing pundits will undoubtedly examine the recent matches and come up with a variety of qualified diagnosis on their own. But one thing I am positive they will fail to point to is that Pakistan lost because of lack of discipline.
With pre-match hoopla on the strength of their bowling attack, Pakistan let the country down with shoddy bowling right from the start. Except for the few bright spots in Umar Gul and Shabbir Ahmed, their vaunted bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammed Sami were dismal failures.
Their failure I believe is directly attributed to the lack of discipline they demonstrated during bowling. Instead of bowling a consistent line and length, these two frontline bowlers wanted to ram everything down the Indians’ throats. And the Indians were well prepared. Turning speed into quick flicks to the boundaries, the Indians came up with record scores. And instead of learning from their mistakes, Sami and Shoaib continued to perform in the same hopeless vein. On the contrary, the Indian bowlers with far less experience managed to maintain a disciplined line and length attack.
Similarly, Pakistani batting while full of talent was sorely lacking in performance. Batsmen who got good starts were soon dismissed to rash shots. Their openers were not dependable, the middle order fell once too often to poorly executed shots, and the tail did not wag consistently.
Except for shades of discipline in an innings or two from Inzaman, Youhanna or Imran Farhat, the rest should wonder what frame of minds they were in when they got on the field. One has to marvel the discipline shown by Sehwag or Dravid with their innings-winning scores.
The final Test was a one-sided affair. Teams evenly matched on paper, yet the outcome so brutally lop-sided. Forgetting that this is a team sport that requires not only talent but individual discipline, in Pakistani cricket everyone wants to be the hero. Only this time they ended up as miserable losers.
