Bringing cricket back, the South African way
So, the latest news is that eight companies, including Ten Sports, Nimbus and Geo TV, have already made their recommendations to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), while another three are expected to do so this week. Chairman PCB Zaka Ashraf is working on what can easily be called the Pakistani ‘mission impossible’. He wants Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India to visit Pakistan; his players to be a part of the Indian Premier League, Sialkot to play the Champions League and to start the Pakistani Premier League in couple of months. What the PCB needs to understand is that they are repeating a ...
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The way forward for Pakistan cricket
All the rumours of sacking Misbah as captain have been laid to rest after Pakistan’s victory in the Asia Cup. The fear of Pakistan going downhill after the ODI series lost against England is no more there. Pakistan cricket has been stable, and for once the cricket season ended on a high note with not much to worry about. But what’s next for Pakistan? There are still many unanswered questions like: Who will be the next captain for Pakistan? Which new bowlers will have a future in the team? For how long can we persist with spinners as our main weapon? Who is the right ...
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Why should Afridi steer the ship?
On March 30, 2011, when the team lost to our arch rivals and eventual champions, India in the semi-finals of the coveted 2011 World Cup, this is what our team captain at the time, Shahid Afridi had to say: “I want to say sorry to my nation. We tried our level best but couldn’t make it. I am pleased with the way my team played throughout the competition.” He apologised for leading a fragmented, jaded, and weak team to the top four; something which he envisaged on February 9, 2011. The talismanic all-rounder was ...
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South Africa vs India: Battle for supremacy
If India had won, lost or even drawn the series there would have been no change in the ICC Test Ranking. It would remain on top and South Africa would be number two. However, since India has never won a series in Australia, England or South Africa, the team could not truly call itself the ‘best Test side’ in the world. Hence, this series in South Africa was the unofficial Test Championship for the best test side. The series lived up to the expectations with some exhilarating cricket being played by both sides. It will be remembered for Sachin Tendulkar scoring ...
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The return of Younus Khan
Younus Khan rescued Pakistan through a memorable, match-saving century against South Africa in Dubai. It’s rare for Pakistan to stage such a fight in Tests and that too against a top team like the Proteas. Younus hit an unbeaten 131 as Pakistan earned a draw after accumulating 343-3. His brilliant knock made me wonder what Pakistan could have achieved on their marathon tour of England earlier this year had Younus been a part of the tour, which was overall disastrous. Pakistan’s batsmen flopped miserably on the tour and the visitors crashed to series defeats against England in ...
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A little prayer for the Pakistan cricket team
After being trashed and slashed by local and international media any team would have been in low spirits. I don’t know about PCB and its support to our match winning bowlers like Mohammad Aamir. I cannot predict whether or not the ICC will lift the ban from our star players before the World Cup. But it seems now that after a short – unbearable – break, our players are gaining back their confidence. May team Pakistan win this ODI series versus a strong and full of confidence competitor, South Africa. Only our support will motivate and encourage these players. I have ...
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Team Green: Consistently losing
For years Pakistani cricket fans have been asking for a bit of consistency. Well, they say to be careful what you wish for because we finally have got some! Sadly, it’s not the kind of consistency we wanted. After Wednesday’s T20 loss to South Africa, we have now lost four consecutive T20 matches. But the true measure of our consistency comes from the details of the results. Our last four T20 match (2 against South Africa, and 2 against England) results read like this: loss by 6 wickets loss by 6 wickets loss by 6 wickets loss by 5 wickets There was a time when if ...
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Waka Waka Spain!
I want Spain to win the World Cup! Reason? They have never gone beyond the semi finals in World Cup history and they are the European champions so why not world champs? It is quite useless to evaluate teams on the basis of technique. Like cricket anything can happen in football. How many times have we seen the predictions of cricket analysts proving to be as reliable as weather updates from the MET office. I could easily get away with not having a good reason for Spain being my favorite. After all this has been an upsetting World Cup. Ghana, Argentina and even Brazil….so ...
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Four reasons why England’s loss is no surprise
While the UK media did a great job of propping up the English side in the run up to the 2010 World Cup, nothing but the results can speak for their performance. That anyone genuinely thought England could lift the World Cup this year, is a testament to how members of the media can sway public opinion on things one wouldn’t usually give a second thought to were one to calmly focus on the facts instead. I’ll get straight to it, here are four signs that went unnoticed by Englands Coaching Staff and its fans, who blindly followed England to ...
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Multi-Culti Mundial?
The 2010 World Cup officially began two weeks ago, but in reality had begun for South Africa since 2004. There are six different (language) versions of the official world cup anthem ‘wave your flag.’ They all feature K’naan and have the same cheering crowds, bright colours, contagious excitement, obligatory celebration of nationalism and of course, all celebrate the flag. They all sell patriotic pride K’naan collaborates with Nancy Ajram to produce the Arabic version, with David Bisbal to produce the Spanish version, with Jacky Cheung and Jane Zhang for the Chinese version, with Féfé for the French version. Skank did ...
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