Comment piece: Touqir Hussain on the Pakistan ‘rebuilding’

Touqir Hussain28-May-2003We need to draw appropriate lessons from Pakistan team’s gratifying but unconvincing performance in Sri Lanka to help remain on track towards building a top-level team.I would like to offer some views to make this rebuilding process truly productive and enduring.Historically, the term rebuilding when used around a cricket team usually has an unsavoury context. It has often been used to rationalise any consistent failure of a team by maintaining that it was in a rebuilding process.I was in the West Indies recently and the conversation with knowledgeable cricket fans was invariably about what was wrong with both Pakistan and West Indies cricket. I tried to explain that “actually we were rebuilding”, to which they shot back, “Maaan, they all say that; look at the West Indies, we have been rebuilding for the last ten years.”This left me wondering about all those statements in recent years by Pakistani cricket management dismissing any losses with remarks that there is nothing to worry about, “we are preparing for the World Cup”. In fact, even the term rebuilding was used several times in this context.In this latest round we are now being made to believe as if the concept of rebuilding has just been discovered, and that we have to persist with it and on top to have confidence in the Board as it rebuilds. The results however tell a different story.In all honesty, the General running the cricket board has also done some good things for Pakistan cricket for which, I am afraid, he has not been given due credit.So, for all its shortcomings, I am resigned to accept the existing system, which in any case is not accessible to my influence or capacity to change.In a good cricket administration the rebuilding is not an event but a process. And a good process does not have to be assigned any labels, rebuilding or anything else.It would be pertinent to begin here with a popular misconception, which is the concept of not changing a “winning combination”. When we win, even if it is against Bangladesh, or a below strength regular competitor, up goes the slogan that not only our cricket has been rejuvenated but also that we have found a “winning combination”. Just because a team has won a match or even a tournament does not make it a winning combination, not to be altered under any circumstances.I have seen matches in the past which were won purely by the efforts of one or two players, especially bowlers, and often in the face of some rank bad performance by some others whose retention in the team should have been reviewed but this never happened with us.The approach to rebuilding should be marked neither by complacency nor panic. Old players who are past their prime should in normal course be eased out before they become deadwood and a liability. And this has to be done irrespective of any past public adulation they may have enjoyed. Indeed, their mythical status often owes to their image building by the Board itself with such appellations that so and so is a “national asset” etc. And unfortunately the label remains in currency long after the player has passed on from being a national asset to a national “heritage”.It creates discipline problems besides making it hard to drop such players. The media also, which is otherwise very knowledgeable and professional, sometimes creates pressures for the Board by lobbying on behalf of players. And there are different, and often conflicting and contradictory, voices speaking for differentplayers. Who does the Board listen to?Now what is the best way to blood in new and young players?To bring them in one by one in phases, so that there are older and experienced players still around to take them under their wings, guide them and facilitate their initiation. Look at what happened when a completely changed and young team was fielded against the Australians resulting in their being shot out in fifties in both the innings.There is another way to bring in new players. They should be introduced when the team is still strong and on a winning streak. It is much easier on the morale of a young player to be initiated as part of a winning team, not a losing team. See how even some of the players with no exceptional talent have blossomed by beinginitiated into the current winning Australian team. I am sure if they had been brought into a losing outfit they would have by now come and gone, never to be heard of again. Even in our own team some of the most successful inductions were done in the glory days of our cricket, under Mushtaq’s and Imran’s captaincyThirdly, if possible we should wait for not too tough a competitor to introduce a new player, specially a batsman, and do so preferably in a home series. Remember some of our best players in the past were introduced in a home series – such as Mushtaq Mohammad, Majid Khan, Asif Iqbal, Zaheer Abbas, Javed Miandad, Saleem Malik, and Inzamam (even though it was a one day series), to name only a few. It is true there were no neutral umpires or TV replays then and we may have had the advantage of having a few “nationalistic” umpires, but the argument still holds.I shall conclude this article with two suggestions for the Board. One relates to the team and the other to the Board.Firstly about the team and especially the batsmen. I shall begin by saying that Miandad is potentially the best coach we can have. And I compliment the Board for appointing him. It was sad he had to leave just before the 1999 World Cup, because certain players got so carried away about the sudden resurgence of the team, to which Miandad had indeed contributed, that they thought they could get rid of him and claim credit for the likely win at the World Cup themselves. And they engineered his exit. I would not name any names. Miandad may not have been a very personable man but he always gave his very best to the team and the country. I think he is an ideal coach, for the batting at least.But I am going to suggest something else. Anyone who has listened to Ian Chappell doing commentary cannot help being terribly impressed by his extraordinary insight into the game. When he is giving expert comments on the batting, each ball is analysed with remarks as comprehensive, insightful and penetrating as an essay. I would suggest the Board dig out videos while he was commenting on Pakistan batsmen. And give them to our batsmen for guidance, particularly to those who are still playing. Indeed other players who have just joined in and have not been to Australia can also benefit.At the same time we should show our players videos of cricketing greats from others countries specially batsmen with excellent technique such as Greg Chappell, Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar and Barry Richards. I hear Barry Richards had a very effective technique to play swinging and seaming balls. I have omitted Viv Richards and Brian Lara, because of their unique talent allowing them to play unconventional shots that may be hard for others to copy.It might also be a good idea to give our players some lessons in psychology. Now there have been numerous books written to help sportsmen with the techniques of peak performance and optimal experience. Anthony Robbins’ books on peak performance can be very useful and on optimal experience, I highly recommend the book “Flow” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.Lastly, a word of advice to the PCB. I would say if the team is to be rebuilt, so should be the Board. Please reform and restructure yourself. I know a beginning has been made, for the first time, but it needs to be carried through. Every one’s responsibility has to be delineated and made autonomous as far as possiblespecially that of the Selection Committee. And there is no need for the Chairman to be getting involved in team selection or to address the media so often. We continue to hear different and even discordant voices on selection. This has to be remedied.And finally one more thing. Pakistan cricket has gone through so much controversy and strife, that I would advise the Chairman not to appoint people to sensitive positions who may have been playing cricket until very recently, and may have some scores to settle. I am not referring to any specific individuals; it is just a general advice.Good luck to the team and the Board.Ed: Touqir Hussain is former Ambassador of Pakistan to Japan