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Outgunned, and outfought

On a pleasant Sunday afternoon at the Perth cricket ground, Pakistani batsmen Ijaz Ahmed, Azhar Mehmood, Moin Khan and captain Wasim Akram threw their bats at everything that the Australian bowlers hurled at them and scored at a rapid pace.

It was as though they were batting in the slog overs of a one-day international. The fact was that the Pak batsmen were hurtling to their doom on the third day of the third and final Test match, in a series they ended up losing 3-0. Thus, one of the most eagerly awaited clashes of recent times, between two cricketing giants, ended up as a no-contest.

The Pak attitude clearly indicated they had given up hope of even saving themselves the humiliation of an innings defeat. No doubt, they faced a tough task at the beginning of the third day, having already lost two wickets while facing a deficit of 296 runs. The wicket was behaving beautifully, though, and I expected Pakistan to put up some sort of a fight, making the Aussie bowlers earn every wicket. That however did not happen -- it was as if the Pak batsmen were eager to end their tenure at the wicket and leave for their hotel rooms. Even on the second day of the match, as Justin Langer and Ricky Ponting piled up runs in their 347-run partnership, the shoulders of the Pak bowlers drooped. Wasim Akram went off with a groin strain.

Frankly speaking, I had not expected this whitewash. Man to man, the Pakistanis possessed more talent than any other side in the business today. The bowling, in the hands of Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Shoaib Akthar, Azhar Mehmood, Mohamad Akram, Saqlain Mushtaq and Mushtaq Ahmed, looked easily the most potent attack in international cricket today. Shoaib, billed as the fastest in the world, was expected to cross the 100-mile barrier. The batting revolved around some of the best stroke-makers in the game, while Moin Khan was arguably the best wicketkeeper in the world. Wasim Akram had claimed he was confident he had the team to beat the Australians, the world champions.

Why then did the Pakistanis find their dreams shattered? The reason -- and the lesson behind this series -- is simple. Individual talent alone is not enough, any more. The same fate had befallen the Gary Sobers-led West Indians Down Under in 1968-'69. Then the acknowledged world champions, the Windies boasted players like Kanhai, Sobers, Nurse, Butcher, Solomon, Hall, Griffith, Edwards, Gibbs, Holford and a youthful Clive Lloyd. A century from Lloyd enabled the Windies to win the first Test at Brisbane, but the Bill Lawry-led Aussies came back strongly and won the series 3-1. The Windies never got going and the Australian batsmen, Chappell, Lawry, Stackpole, Redpath, Ross Edwards and Doug Walters, feasted on the wayward Windies bowling.

Unlike Sobers, who during that fateful tour, spent more time on the golf course than the cricket field, Akram was a more conscientious captain. But he faced more serious problems. A cricket tour of Australia required special preparations. Unfortunately, the Pakistanis ended up playing one-dayers till the last moment and when they landed in Australia, they had not played a Test match for seven months. And they were pitchforked into the first Test at Brisbane after just one four-day match.

Pakistan cricket had been in turmoil for several months before the Australian tour. Till the team actually landed in Australia, it was not sure if certain players would really make the trip. Beset by betting and match-fixing allegations, most of the top Pak players were busy with their lawyers or media advisers, which left little time for mental preparation.

Every day there was a fresh rumour -- Wasim, Ijaz and some other players were to be banned for life or fined huge amounts, and so on. The judicial enquiry into the scandals had found the players guilty, but the Accountability Committee of the Nawaz Sharif government exonerated them. When the military government came to power, the chairman of the Accountability Committee went missing. Since Pakistani cricket was closely allied to national politics, we could only hope that the tour would go on as planned.

Naturally, the players were not allowed to concentrate on their cricket. Ijaz and the leggie, Mushtaq, certainties for the Australian tour, never got to play any competitive cricket for months. When Mushtaq bowled his first ball at Brisbane, he did so after a break of more than a year. The same was the case with Ijaz. Mushtaq was carted all over by the batsmen, while Ijaz played from memory. The Australians systematically destroyed the confidence of little Mushie, who had bamboozled the Australians during his previous visit to their country.

The home team, on the other hand, had done their home work well. They knew they could not contain an in-form Pakistan team. The Aussie strategy was always to play the first Test at the Gabba, in Brisbane, where the pitch was hard and bouncy and the ball seamed. Since 1990, the Australians had won seven out of the nine Tests played on this ground. Once the opposition went down in the first Test, it was going to be difficult to recover and win the series.

The unprepared Pakistanis fell neatly into the trap. Continuing in the one-day vein, their brilliant stroke-players contributed cameo innings but when set, flashed at deliveries outside the off stump and perished regularly. The Aussie bowling strategy was simple -- the pace trio Glenn McGrath, Damien Fleming and Scott Muller (the last named replaced by Michael Kasprowicz at Perth), attacked the off stump, kept the ball up all the time and concentrated on late outswingers. The Pak batsmen went for drives, cuts and steers, most of the time without moving their feet, and went back to the pavilion, caught in the slip cordon or behind the wicket. It was typical limited-overs batting.

Some of the batsmen did perform well. Saeed Anwar, Inzamam-ul-Haq, and Ijaz Ahmed hit sparkling centuries at Brisbane, Hobart and Perth respectively. Makeshift opener Mohamad Wasim and middle order batsman Yousuf Yohanna also played neat cameo innings but time and again, got out playing wild shots to balls wide outside the off stump. Moin Khan was off colour with the bat. Though the Pak batsmen seldom clicked together in the same match, compared to earlier tours, they did score more runs. But the bowling failed miserably.

This was the most shocking aspect of the tour. The pace attack never got going and Australian batsmen, particularly Slater, scored at a hectic pace, at times nearly four to five runs an over! Batsmen from both sides hit an astonishing number of boundaries. The Australians batted according to a plan -- they never allowed the bowlers to settle. The bowlers helped bring about their own downfall, often bowling too full a length or too short, to be driven, pulled and cut. After making a respectable 367 in the first innings of the Brisbane Test, the Pakistanis could not contain Slater and company, who piled up 550 plus. The bowling was ragged and the fielding horrid. Catches went down by the dozen. The players acted as though they dreaded the ball coming towards them. Every single Australian batsman who scored runs in the series was dropped four or five times!

The famed Pak attack could not produce one ball to get rid of either Justin Langer or Adam Gilchrist during their historic, match-winning partnership at Hobart which snatched certain victory from the Pakistanis. Of course, the fate of the match would have been different had umpire Peter Parker declared Langer out, caught behind from a clear snick. But cricket is full of such lost opportunities, and the Pakistanis should have tried harder.

Langer had just come back from a miserable tour of Sri Lanka where he was out time and again to offie Muthiah Muralitharan. I wonder if the Pakistanis studied videotapes of his dismissal, edging off breaks to the slips. The Pak star, Saqlain, seldom bowled his off breaks on middle and off to Langer. They were always pitched outside the off stump and were comfortably handled by the batsman.

The series clearly proved that Murali was a step ahead of Saqlain who despite his dreaded 'doosra' ( the ball which went the other way) bowled at least two bad balls per over. How come a leading offspinner could not dismiss two left-handers, even on the last day of a Test match? Saqlain will be haunted by this question for the rest of his life.

Time and again, Wasim declared that his shock weapon, Shoaib, would touch 100 miles an hour and turn out to be the best bowler on view. The 'Rawalpindi Express' did touch 155 kms an hour, but without proper length and direction made no impact on the batsman. Akram was clearly on the decline. Troubled by acute diabetes, he seldom impressed in his first spell, when in earlier times he was at his most dangerous. Waqar Younis had one good spell in the first innings of the Hobart Test, while Azhar Mehmood and Mohammad Razaak did not create much of an impression.

I had expected Azhar to perform like a Sobers or an Imran Khan, but he was more like former Indian allrounder Rusi Surti, (nicknamed the poor man's Sobers!), two or three wickets in a match and around 25 to 30 runs per innings. But Azhar was, at least, always trying and his shoulders never sagged even when his team was taking a pounding.

Mind you, the Pakistan bowlers often had the better of the Waugh twins and Ricky Ponting. But the middle order flourished. The openers, particularly Slater, were aggressive all the time. Ponting came to bat at Perth with three ducks against his name in the earlier Tests. But he showed no signs of nervousness and blasted a masterly 197. He was however seldom put under pressure during the early part of his innings.

Pakistan as a nation does not accept defeats gracefully. I pity poor Wasim Akram. Despite finishing runners-up in the 1999 World Cup, he was pilloried by the media and the officials. The same treatment may now be repeated. Will the Board continue with him till the current season ends? And was Akram fully fit during the Australian tour? These questions remain to be answered.

To redeem its tattered reputation, Pakistan must beat India and Australia in the triangular one-day series. Under Wasim, they had done it some years back, beating the Windies and the home team. This time they face a more difficult task. Australia is bubbling with confidence and will not rest content till they win the triangular series too.

Pakistan needs to come together as a team, to play as a unit. Wasim has his task cut out -- and on the result of the triangular could well hinge his own personal future.