Daily Times

Knee-jerk and ad hoc
planning can never be a substitute for proactive and pre-emptive leadership. Despite the fact that a democratic government for the first time did a full term and has now transferred the reins to another democratic government, the country is still being run on a ‘make do’ temporary basis. Major institutions are still headless and being served by acting heads. The problem with acting heads is that at best they can only act on urgent emergency issues and are not really going to address important long-term problems that beset most of these government run organisations. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is no exception. With musical chairs being played for the chair of PCB the whole focus is to prove that if we win it is because of the present management’s brilliance and if we lose it is due to the previous management’s negligence. Coaches and management are hired mostly on ad hoc basis and on acting basis focus only on saving their positions instead of saving the matches. While this power strings circus is going on, the whole nation is praying that the amazing talent of our cricket team will somehow make us repeat the 1992 achievement. However, as we know, there is more to cricket than talent.

We lost the Asian Cup gracefully and the T20 disgracefully. The time to moan and groan and do the typical blame game ritual is just not there as we are less than a year away from the biggest of them all, the World Cup, to be held from February 2015 in Australia. As they say, if we fail to plan, we plan to fail. What needs to be done is to make a strategic plan of what are the three ‘must win’ battles we have to fight to win the war in Australia. The selection committee, captain, coach and a basic list of 40 best players should be finalised at the earliest with the assurance that any changes at the top should not endanger their positions. This management squad should have clear-cut performance criteria aside from wining international matches as Pakistan will not be playing any major tournament for some time. For example, the coach has to be judged on improving the fitness of the players. Most of our younger players are overweight and prone to unfitness and injury. He needs to have a 10-month fitness plan for each player on at least five physical fitness criteria on which they should be evaluated on weekly basis. These players should be given a target of 120 percent fitness or we will be burdened with semi-fit players like Umar Gul for a tournament that will be gruelling and testing for the fittest.

Physical fitness is a challenge but mental toughness is the real need. Talent is in abundance but mental toughness is in deficit. Most young cricketers belong to backgrounds where their exposure outside their local streets and vicinity is minimum. With some lukewarm competitions in domestic cricket and some routine training in camps, they are thrust into the cutthroat world of the extravaganza of cricket where crowd frenzy is killing, bookie betting is thrilling and politics is shrilling. In this cultural shock they are expected to learn, adapt and remain cool. What is needed is extremely rigourous training of mental toughness. The Pakistani team went one month before the 1992 World Cup to adapt, learn and adjust. The Australian team spent 15 days in a jungle to learn survival in impossible conditions. The Pakistani management needs to develop two teams of 20 players each who are made to play one days on wickets similar to Adelaide where the India-Pakistan match will be played and also on bouncy wickets like Perth. Pitch experts who are soil scientists need to be hired to lay pitches in cities that have soil similarities to Australia for practice. On the competitive performance of each player in a choose-the-team tournament played on such wickets, the final 16 should be chosen. Pakistan is touring Australia and New Zealand in September/October and must stay back for practicing in real conditions. Tough, non-relenting matches that will decide the selection of players in the final squad will do wonders for a team that will have little opportunity of playing serious cricket throughout the year.

Perhaps the most difficult training will be on instilling values and ethics. The PCB needs to first of all formulate values that they want every Pakistani cricketer to live and play by. The rampant accusations of spot fixing and match fixing that have destroyed our cricketers need to be addressed through proper grooming and training. Cricket is no longer a gentleman’s game. The business of cricket is too big and too commercial now to let rookie and raw players be exposed to millions of rupees that can easily fill their bank accounts due to a seemingly erring foot over the line. What is required is first of all forming a set of core values that an ideal cricketer needs to abide by. Values like national honour, integrity, competitive fire and athletic excellence need to be formulated and not only written everywhere but be part of their day-to-day conduct. They should go to innovative and interactive training sessions to understand the behaviour that is a must for practicing these values. There should be an oath taking on these values along with a reward and penalty system based not only on cricketing performance but on adherence to these values as well. The recent incidents of star players violating traffic rules and then throwing tantrums should all be part of evaluating their contracts and rewards. Australian and English cricket have strict penalties for behavioural lapses. Star players like Pieterson were severely penalised for sending inappropriate text messages. To inculcate an attitude of professionalism and maturity, a code of conduct has to be formed, educated and rewarded/penalised accordingly.

Talent is sometimes overrated and over depended upon. The Pakistani team is without doubt very talented but lacks the mental and professional maturity to make it win consistently. The raw and unexposed brains that are picked up literally from streets around the country are brilliant depending on their moods and state of mind but are unable to develop a clear action plan to manage their innings, their bowling spells or their careers. These are the areas where coaches need to focus. Teaching them various grips on the bat is all good but teaching them how to grip nervousness, how to control the rush of blood and how to ward off easy advances from tempting offers is what is more important. So much of our young talent has become a victim of this deficit. Mohammad Amir is a loss that we all will keep talking about, yet not do enough to prevent the same from happening to our cricketers in the future. We still have time enough to plan a completely different way of training and preparing for the World Cup. Just changing the names of selectors, coaches and physios will not change the results. What we need to focus on is a complete change of mindsets, strategy and approach of those who select the selectors and the rest of the entourage. It is only when we think differently that we do things differently and it is only when we do things differently that we can aspire for a different result.

The writer is an analyst and columnist and can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com