Pakistan afraid of losing?
When Ganguly talks to curators, it always makes the news headlines and a lot of people criticize him and some even go to the extent of giving it a mention in their autobiographies. But, there was hardly any shout against Inzamam when he openly wanted bouncy tracks for this series against India. Having seen the wicket at Lahore, now everyone wants better wickets for the next 2 Tests.
What surprises me more is that none of these so-called analysts and experts predicted that this wicket was such a lifeless batting wicket until Pakistan finished their first innings. Everyone kept saying that if the batsman can play himself in for a few overs, this wicket is his and would even assist the spinners later on. If they are experts, can't they talk about it before the toss or atleast at the end of day 1, when everyone were just praising Younis & Yousuf? Yes, they batted very well and put up huge scores, but where was all this criticism about the wicket on the first day. When India started to bat brightly, all the criticism started. Does this convey that all those experts expected only Pakistan to fare well. It might probably take all of the year 2006 to dismiss both sides twice on this wicket. As Zainub has pointed out, there have been flatter batting tracks, but my concern is that we are not hearing the real "experts".
To me, such a pitch shows only Pakistan's fear of losing, especially in the first Test of a series. Though Inzamam talked about good bouncy bowling wickets to the press, I am pretty convinced that a lot of people (including Inzamam) had a say in this flat wicket, as they were a bit scared of giving a green top to Pathan and an improved Agarkar and even a rejuvenated Zaheer.
This said, I have just been spellbound by Nasser Hussain behind the microphone. This is not the Nasser whom I have hated in front of the wickets. I have just heard a lot of good things about cricket from him in the last 3 days and I really look forward to this series with him. In fact, I am fairly sure that he would be even more delightful in better company than the two at present.
Labels: pitch
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Oh common, 'afraid' of losing sounds like a line straight from an Indian soap, no team in the world is 'afraid' of losing, not even Zimbabawe and Bangladesh.
Just because we'd rather not have a pitch that doesn't expose our weakness(es) on the expense of exploiting our strength(s), it hardly means we are a negative side, or that we're scared of losing or that we're happy with draws.
I've made my self clearer here:
http://blogs.cricinfo.com/different_strokes/archives/2006/01/the_self-image.php#comments
By 
Unknown (17 Jan 2006, 2:40:00 am)
beowulf: I don't think Inzi asked for 'green tops'. Like I mentioned in my post last week, even wickets with a fair amount of juice in them would have been out of the question because in my opinion, Pakistan's batting with the exception of Inzamam would not have survived in those conditions.
zainub: I am not aware of the weather conditions which made the pitch preparation difficult. But how likely is it that we'll see similar pitches at Faisalabad and Karachi? From a map, it seems like Faisalabad and Lahore at a similar latitude. Karachi, being closer to Bombay and at the southern tip, is more likely to have better weather. So I don't think too much time will be lost there.
By Jagadish (17 Jan 2006, 5:41:00 pm)
'afraid' may not be the word, but certainly pak did a lot of harm to this test by giving such a 'safe' wicket where they cant lose.
and also, why has no one raised a question against inzy for doctoring pitches?
By Ganesh (17 Jan 2006, 5:59:00 pm)
beowulf: I can't remember Inzy saying 'green tops'. He definitely did say bounce and pace though. If you could point us to the relevant source, that'd be interesting to read. Faisalabad is apparently less than 150 km from Lahore. So I really cant see too many weather changes. If they do manage to get the pitch sorted out in spite of the weather, I predict an absolute howler of a wicket at Faisalabad and Karachi so that there is a chance that Pakistan would win (and at worst draw) the series if the toss went their way.
By Jagadish (18 Jan 2006, 1:02:00 am)
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