Pakistan crumbled again.
It seems to me that they carry some sort of burden on their shoulders when they play against India, especially in the crutial matches. The more crutial the match is, the heavier the burden becomes. With every defeat this burden gets heavier; and finally, laden with religious nonsense, it becomes unbearable. And they crumble under its weight.
- Obviously. Pakistan and India are old rivals and it is natural for them to feel stressed up in key contests.
- Rivalry has reduced with time. It is far less than it used to be. But weight has shown an opposite trend. It has only become heavier.
The way and the extent to which they mix up faith, honor and cricket is typically Pakistani and it embarasses decent people. Cricketers keeping long beards chanting strange mantras on mike look out of place and ridiculous. And statements like "insha-Allah we will not lose in the holy month of Ramadan" creates a bad taste in everyone's mouth. The idea of owning, mistressing, God is pathetic. If God exists, their God is our God too.
Before the T20 finals, parallels from 1992 were drawn by their side to take psychological edge. But as Dostoevsky rightly says, psychology is a double-edged sword and often it kills the one who holds it. And getting killed by your own sword makes the death more tragic for you and more amusing for the killer. Perhaps Pietersen can explain this in more detail.
But they would not understand, and keep piling things. On their bad days, a Tendulkar walks in and clobbers them to ignominy. On luckier occasions, they find their own way. Such is that burden that no Anwar or no Inzamam could carry, when it really mattered. Not even in 1992! The burden to do things, said in relaxed moments, makes itself heavy in the field. The burden to win and win with disdain doesn't work anymore, not even with so-called minnows. Aamir Sohail tried this with Venkatesh Prasad and we saw how he crumbled under the weight of his own hubris. The inevitable happened, again. Bitter memories have their own weight, and they lie heavily on Pakistani heads.
Misbah-ul-Haq had to score just a single off two deliveries. And the bowler was Sreesanth. What else can someone who calls himself a batsman (and indeed is!) can ask for! But suddenly he found his bat too heavy to be lifted. Pakistan escaped victory again in world cup. What followed the draw was a spectacle Pakistani fans will never like to remember but at the same time will never be able to forget. We had seen wild celebration of absurdity all around, from cheer-leaders to nonsense like bowl-out. But every travesty of modern cricket was overshadowed by the display of unbelievable incompetence on the part of Pakistani bowlers. More than the event, it was their response to that event which ridiculed the standard of the game. Harbhajan's hand-pumping after hitting the unguarded stumps was degrading enough; but their acclaimed bowlers' (man of the tournament included) failing to do that, not once or twice, and not by one or two, certainly topped the charts. And of course, not just defeated, they left dishonored out of the arena. Everything looked surrealistically stupid. But wait a minute. Was that incompetence? I don't believe that. Pakistan does have a quality attack. It was something worse. Perhaps weight.
Pakistan were not new and inexperienced in T20 like the Indians. They have been playing this form of game from long back (Read Rashid Latif's article on cricinfo) and they had all the skills to make it to the finals by beating those who were relatively new and inexperienced, except, of course, India. But in the final they had to face India and they started feeling that again. In the end, unsurprisingly, they were seen down on their knees, crumbled and defeated. They can consider themselves lucky for good reasons, and that luck helped them reaching pretty close to the cup. Sehwag was declared unfit and senior Pathan was not a fitting substitute for him. Chawla was already injured and Dhoni had hardly anything to choose from. Good omen and the meaning of having a good omen must have fanned their feiry minds. That fire was apparent in their attack and kudos to Umer Gul to wrap up the Indian middle order rather cheaply.
But the second half repeated the old story. Misbah, the poor guy, is not to be blamed. He just wanted to get rid of some weight by doing a Miyadad. Unfortunately his shot to glory backfired. In retrospect, doing something like that when you have to score 6 off comfortable 4 deliveries, without losing wicket, seems dull and insane. But this dullness and this insanity was not personally his, but was very much collective. In post-match ceremony, their skipper demonstrated the same dullness and insanity by thanking all the Muslims of the world for supporting his side.
It is high time Pakistan do some introspection. The fact is that they have lost in the holy month of Ramadan and more importantly, they have lost rather unfortunately. The only consolation for them is that they lost to a better, if not stronger, team that could hold its nerve in taut moments and could hit the stumps from 22 yards. Under an influence of stupidity, or something worse, Sohaib Malik might have thanked all the Muslims in the world for supporting his side, but he forgot that the man who sent him back to pavilion is called Irfan Pathan, who was also the man of the match. The very match that they had lost.
Mr Malik, grow up. Come out of your medieval mentality. Cricket is a game, and game is to be enjoyed and played with sports spirit. Winning and losing is important, but result comes after the game. And result is meaningless if it corrupts the very spirit of the game. Cricket has never had anything to do with religion. Stop humiliating yourself, your fans, and your religion by issuing irresponsible statements and instead play the game well. Entertain Pakistanis and entertain Indians. Don't embarass them. You have your supporters here in India as well, and all of them are not Muslims. May you get some peace of mind. Better luck next time.
It seems to me that they carry some sort of burden on their shoulders when they play against India, especially in the crutial matches. The more crutial the match is, the heavier the burden becomes. With every defeat this burden gets heavier; and finally, laden with religious nonsense, it becomes unbearable. And they crumble under its weight.
- Obviously. Pakistan and India are old rivals and it is natural for them to feel stressed up in key contests.
- Rivalry has reduced with time. It is far less than it used to be. But weight has shown an opposite trend. It has only become heavier.
The way and the extent to which they mix up faith, honor and cricket is typically Pakistani and it embarasses decent people. Cricketers keeping long beards chanting strange mantras on mike look out of place and ridiculous. And statements like "insha-Allah we will not lose in the holy month of Ramadan" creates a bad taste in everyone's mouth. The idea of owning, mistressing, God is pathetic. If God exists, their God is our God too.
Before the T20 finals, parallels from 1992 were drawn by their side to take psychological edge. But as Dostoevsky rightly says, psychology is a double-edged sword and often it kills the one who holds it. And getting killed by your own sword makes the death more tragic for you and more amusing for the killer. Perhaps Pietersen can explain this in more detail.
But they would not understand, and keep piling things. On their bad days, a Tendulkar walks in and clobbers them to ignominy. On luckier occasions, they find their own way. Such is that burden that no Anwar or no Inzamam could carry, when it really mattered. Not even in 1992! The burden to do things, said in relaxed moments, makes itself heavy in the field. The burden to win and win with disdain doesn't work anymore, not even with so-called minnows. Aamir Sohail tried this with Venkatesh Prasad and we saw how he crumbled under the weight of his own hubris. The inevitable happened, again. Bitter memories have their own weight, and they lie heavily on Pakistani heads.
Misbah-ul-Haq had to score just a single off two deliveries. And the bowler was Sreesanth. What else can someone who calls himself a batsman (and indeed is!) can ask for! But suddenly he found his bat too heavy to be lifted. Pakistan escaped victory again in world cup. What followed the draw was a spectacle Pakistani fans will never like to remember but at the same time will never be able to forget. We had seen wild celebration of absurdity all around, from cheer-leaders to nonsense like bowl-out. But every travesty of modern cricket was overshadowed by the display of unbelievable incompetence on the part of Pakistani bowlers. More than the event, it was their response to that event which ridiculed the standard of the game. Harbhajan's hand-pumping after hitting the unguarded stumps was degrading enough; but their acclaimed bowlers' (man of the tournament included) failing to do that, not once or twice, and not by one or two, certainly topped the charts. And of course, not just defeated, they left dishonored out of the arena. Everything looked surrealistically stupid. But wait a minute. Was that incompetence? I don't believe that. Pakistan does have a quality attack. It was something worse. Perhaps weight.
Pakistan were not new and inexperienced in T20 like the Indians. They have been playing this form of game from long back (Read Rashid Latif's article on cricinfo) and they had all the skills to make it to the finals by beating those who were relatively new and inexperienced, except, of course, India. But in the final they had to face India and they started feeling that again. In the end, unsurprisingly, they were seen down on their knees, crumbled and defeated. They can consider themselves lucky for good reasons, and that luck helped them reaching pretty close to the cup. Sehwag was declared unfit and senior Pathan was not a fitting substitute for him. Chawla was already injured and Dhoni had hardly anything to choose from. Good omen and the meaning of having a good omen must have fanned their feiry minds. That fire was apparent in their attack and kudos to Umer Gul to wrap up the Indian middle order rather cheaply.
But the second half repeated the old story. Misbah, the poor guy, is not to be blamed. He just wanted to get rid of some weight by doing a Miyadad. Unfortunately his shot to glory backfired. In retrospect, doing something like that when you have to score 6 off comfortable 4 deliveries, without losing wicket, seems dull and insane. But this dullness and this insanity was not personally his, but was very much collective. In post-match ceremony, their skipper demonstrated the same dullness and insanity by thanking all the Muslims of the world for supporting his side.
It is high time Pakistan do some introspection. The fact is that they have lost in the holy month of Ramadan and more importantly, they have lost rather unfortunately. The only consolation for them is that they lost to a better, if not stronger, team that could hold its nerve in taut moments and could hit the stumps from 22 yards. Under an influence of stupidity, or something worse, Sohaib Malik might have thanked all the Muslims in the world for supporting his side, but he forgot that the man who sent him back to pavilion is called Irfan Pathan, who was also the man of the match. The very match that they had lost.
Mr Malik, grow up. Come out of your medieval mentality. Cricket is a game, and game is to be enjoyed and played with sports spirit. Winning and losing is important, but result comes after the game. And result is meaningless if it corrupts the very spirit of the game. Cricket has never had anything to do with religion. Stop humiliating yourself, your fans, and your religion by issuing irresponsible statements and instead play the game well. Entertain Pakistanis and entertain Indians. Don't embarass them. You have your supporters here in India as well, and all of them are not Muslims. May you get some peace of mind. Better luck next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment