Hassan Cheema
How will future fans look back at Bangladesh's rise?
They don't have the luxury of wallowing in murky, pre-YouTube nostalgia like fans of other teams do
Hassan Cheema
05-Sep-2015
We live in an era that increasingly fetishises nostalgia. Retro is cool, old is new and the ideologies of hipsterism and new masculinity are based around the rejection of the modern. From movies to TV shows (all of which seem to have reduced their creativity to just reminding you of your childhood - remakes, sequels and comic book adaptations: welcome to the height of creativity) to right-wing talking heads, the magnificence of the past grows with every passing day. It's an era that makes it easy for sport - forever defined by nostalgia - to become part of the pop-culture landscape.
But sport struggles with a dichotomy. Whereas in, say, music whatever you were listening to at 16 will always be the greatest thing ever (and new music gets worse with each passing week, of course) sports fans have different eras to draw upon.
Jonathan Wilson once argued that the greatest period for your team was five years before you started watching it. I'd add to that the period when you were in your tweens. Nothing makes sport or sportsmen look more glorious than watching it with 12-year-old eyes (disclaimer: neither the writer nor the website endorse the purchase of 12-year-old eyes). But sport, unlike art, can be judged quantifiably, and is forever tied to the Olympian ideal of higher, faster and stronger.
Full postWhat has changed for Pakistan under Azhar?
Maybe it really is a new dawn for their batting. Or is it?
Hassan Cheema
25-Jul-2015
It doesn't take long to flip the narrative.
At the end of April, Pakistan ended up on the wrong side of a whitewash in Bangladesh. This was seen in the local press as the nadir, a "national embarrassment", the "lowest point". A decrepit system that had produced a generation that wasn't good enough - added to Pakistan's role as a pariah in cricket's accelerated evolution - had meant that they had been left behind by the rest of the world as far as the ODI game was concerned. Azhar Ali was just mini-Misbah, another of the establishment's cronies, leading Pakistan further into the depths.
Now, though, we know the truth. The only problem with Pakistan was the negative attitude of Misbah-ul-Haq / the disruptive influence of Shahid Afridi (delete as per your biases). All Pakistan needed was a middle order that could bat briskly / a lower order that could bat responsibly (delete as per your biases). And this is proved by how well Pakistan are batting now, led by Azhar - who is the captain that Misbah should have been: conservative yet still allowing his batsmen enough freedom to express themselves.
Full postYasir Shah: Pakistan's latest match-winning anomaly
His recent success is not reflective of the bigger picture of legspin in Pakistan, but the national team will be hoping he remains the exception for a long time
Hassan Cheema
01-Jul-2015
It doesn't take long for even the truth to become a cliché. It's obvious that the failings of the Pakistan team, particularly its batsmen, often have their roots in the state of the domestic game - yet this is a line that has been trotted out so endlessly over the past year or so that that it is starting to become a cliché. The inability of Pakistan batsmen to rotate the strike, play wristspin or convert their starts has its foundations in the domestic game. But the national team, for much of its history, has been ruled by the anomalies in the system, not its mass products.
Right now this is especially true of the bowling: the top tier of Pakistan bowling exists almost in isolation from all that is happening below it. Pakistan went into the World Cup without their best quartet from this generation and yet still seemed to have enough pace to trouble nearly everyone. This in an era where the domestic game is dominated by wicket-to-wicket medium-pacers. It's the anomalies that have risen to the top.
This is true of Yasir Shah.
Full postQuestions linger after landmark series
If everything beyond the Nishtar Park Complex is ignored Pakistan can still host series, and perform better than they do anywhere else in the world. But is that a price the fans, and visiting teams, are willing to pay?
Hassan Cheema
01-Jun-2015
It started as everyone would have hoped it to - a packed house, goosebumps and Pakistan playing on home soil. It ended as so few would have expected it to - an unseasonal rainstorm drowning the Gaddafi, and forcing the twenty odd thousand present there to find shelter where there was none. Cricket had come home, but so had everything that stops cricket.
The success of this series is difficult to determine. A fortnight during which, in Pakistani eyes, nothing big happened was worth the hassles it brought. There had been six checkposts and a kilometre long walk leading up to the Gaddafi for the first four games. On Sunday, for the third ODI, the number of checkposts was increased and the walk doubled. And still the stadium was sold out. The fans continued to come in droves even when their treatment was anything but fair. The PCB can sell that as a success.
But the viewpoint of the local populace doesn't really matter in the larger scheme of things. For them the fact that the attacker on Friday could not even clear the first line of defence would be seen as a success. This, after all is a country where apathy often gets confused with resilience and which is so used to such incidents that a low death toll can be considered a "success" - however disgusting that idea might seem from afar. The PCB had attempted normalcy but Friday was a reminder that at the very edge of everything they hold dear still stood those who make this society abnormal.
Full postPakistan's pitches out of tune with fans, team's needs
The response of the fans in the two games against Zimbabwe has shown that one-sided run-fests are not as attractive as they are made out to be
Hassan Cheema
29-May-2015
Unlike most press boxes around the world, Lahore's does not believe in serenity - there is a certain liveliness to it whenever a big game (which, to be fair, has usually been restricted to domestic matches in recent years) occurs. It requires something extraordinary to happen, but occasionally the norm is broken: for instance, when Wasim Akram walks in. More than a decade after his retirement it would be difficult to argue that Akram isn't, still, the biggest star in Pakistan cricket - if not in Pakistan.
As hushed whispers bounded, the proverbial stage was Akram's. Reminiscing about his playing days and the packed stadia that were once common throughout the country, he informed everyone of how the fruits of the return of international cricket in Pakistan go so far beyond just what is happening in this tour. And yet one thing remains the same, from the days that forced Pakistani bowlers to develop reverse-swing to Akram himself toiling away for hours trying to produce something from an uncooperative pitch - Pakistan remains a batsman's nirvana.
There are, of course, caveats to such a statement. Pitches in Pakistan, in general, have deteriorated badly over the past decade or so, to the point that they've become the chief bête noir of local batsmen. And in the middle of the season, the winter makes most matches in the northern half of the country - including Lahore - perfect for swing bowlers. But beyond that, whether it is in the limited-overs matches in the domestic game or most international matches this millennium, the pitch at Gaddafi has been a batsmen's paradise. After consecutive T20s where scores in excess of 170 were chased down in this series, the two ODIs so far have been run-fests as well. Today Zimbabwe's score of 268, considered competitive on most surfaces, never looked like enough. Despite an attempt by his batsmen to make it difficult, the continuation of Azhar Ali's purple patch was always likely to be a bit too much. And so it proved. And yet even tonight won't change his perception or be enough to silence his doubters.
Full postHail Azhar the ODI batsman, but wait on the captain
Azhar Ali has shown he can survive in the modern ODI game as a batsman, but still seems unsure of what his bowling captaincy style ought to be
Hassan Cheema
27-May-2015
His appointment induced cries of mini-Misbah and allegations that he was a yes-man. To put it simply, Azhar Ali's selection was anything but popular among most of the Pakistani cricket fraternity. And with the series loss against Bangladesh, all doubters could act smug knowing that they were being proven right. And yet his first ODI victory, against Zimbabwe, provides a template for where he wants his team to go.
He won the toss and batted, believing that he could bat the opposition out of the game, a luxury rarely afforded to Pakistani captains.
There's been a trend in Pakistani cricket over the past decade of captains raising their games on being given the highest job in the land. It goes back, at least, to Inzamam-ul-Haq whose average was five runs higher as captain than without the post. Since then the likes of Shoaib Malik, Shahid Afridi and most recently Misbah-ul-Haq have all raised their games significantly when leading the side. And it's something Azhar certainly seems to be following.
Full postPakistan's vicious circle of failure
Their ODI series loss to Bangladesh highlights several failings - the biggest being that man for man their best XI was a lesser team
Hassan Cheema
27-Apr-2015
And so it begins. Another cycle of repair, another "rebuilding project" where judgements shouldn't be passed as the team is in "transition", another odyssey to nowhere. It would be easy to fall into the trap of these words and phrases if we had not lived through all of this before. Some argue that the Pakistan team is in a downward spiral that cannot be stopped. Others suggest that a four-year cycle keeps repeating itself. Both, it seems, are correct. Trends now shine brighter than the neon lights of Tokyo, but they are trends the Pakistan cricket fraternity continues to ignore.
The most obvious trend is to do with the captaincy. Over the past four years everyone from Mohammad Hafeez to Umar Amin and Sohaib Maqsood have been lined up as alternatives to Misbah - in the end the choice was between Sarfraz Ahmed and Azhar Ali, not because they did anything special, but because all the other potential captains had failed in ways that Azhar and Sarfraz haven't (yet). This was not Virat Kohli or Steven Smith taking over after captaining a multinational T20 team, among others; these were men who, after a decade of domestic cricket, were not first-choice captains for their departmental teams. This was scraping the bottom of the barrel and proclaiming whatever came out to be gold.
Still, this pair is perhaps more qualified to lead than Shoaib Malik or Salman Butt were, for instance - so it isn't as bad as what we've come to expect from the PCB.
Full postDid Pakistan fail against Australia?
Given the circumstances, they actually did the opposite in the World Cup, bringing fervour back to their fan base
Hassan Cheema
21-Mar-2015
So it came to fruition. Everything that we had been warned about, everything that we had learnt, turned out to be true. This team, particularly the batting, was just not good enough, as too often in the recent past.
The delicious irony was that they gave the lie to everything the Pakistani cricket fraternity has complained about. Pakistan played with big hearts, they played attacking shots, they picked their bowlers and the short boundary, they took the game to the Aussies. And they failed.
They failed not only because they did what all the ex-cricketers have been saying they needed to do, but mostly because they just aren't good enough. When players from Pakistan's generation of uber talents talk about possible remedies, they look at belief and body language, not at skill set - and that latter area is exactly where Pakistan have been falling short over and over again. They remain the only batting unit that can't play risk-free modern ODI cricket.
Full postThe <i>jazba</i> is back
It might be just a brief glimmer, but after a miserable build-up to the World Cup, Pakistan are bowling like their exalted predecessors
Hassan Cheema
08-Mar-2015
All Pakistani fans, particularly overgrown boys, have a certain obsession. It goes back to Imran Khan trying to compete in county cricket; it goes back to every adolescent with a tape ball in his hand; it goes back to everything you know and understand about Pakistani cricket. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, which competes with the glamour of being a fast bowler. He is the underdog, the victim and the knight in shining armour - he is what Pakistanis think they are. After all, pace is pace, yaar.
It's not an obsession with the speed gun, nor with wanting blood on the pitch. It's just a state of mind. From Fazal Mahmood to Mohammad Asif, speed has never been a prerequisite to being a "fast bowler". A fast bowler was in your face, he was relentless, and he always thought he was better than you. Asif may never have drawn blood, but he always strutted around knowing he was more than a mere mortal, knowing you were just dirt off his shoulder.
When Osman Samiuddin talked about Pakistan's haal, it's about the unpredictability of the team, about how it rides the waves of momentum, but especially about fast bowlers taking the game by the scruff of the neck and not letting go till there was no pulse.
Full postWhat's with all the talk about Pakistan's lack of heart?
It seems fashionable when they fail to blame it on an absence of passion; the real reasons are probably much more prosaic
Hassan Cheema
23-Feb-2015
The most common narrative doing the rounds of the Pakistani interwebs right now are articles about the similarities between the current squad and the 1992 one. Each piece tries harder than the previous one to connect what can't, or rather shouldn't, be connected.
But there is one thing that the current Pakistan squad, led by Misbah-ul-Haq, Waqar Younis and chief selector Moin Khan, share with the class of 1992. Their approach to ODI batting, as I have said previously, is very much behind the rest of the world. The mentality behind the team selection and the way the team plays is a throwback to the early '90s. And it's something worth condemning. If Pakistan do well in this tournament, it'll either be because they have finally realised the shortcomings of their mindset, or because of individual brilliance - which they have had to rely on too often.
Yet the reactions to the loss to India in Adelaide in particular provided a window into the mindset of the Pakistani cricket fraternity. What was condemned was the bowling. Apparently the match was over when India were restricted to 300 - never mind that that is considered a par score these days. Apparently the game was over after 45 overs. Apparently the only problem with Pakistan, on a day that they dived around more than normal and kept their heads in the death overs and for the first third of their batting, was that they didn't play with big hearts. Apparently the confidence of a group of bowlers who were charged up for 20 overs shouldn't be affected by a fielding unit that drops a catch once every ten overs.
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