Opening Statement: The Indian squad features some real batting power houses but the bowling front seems to be compromised and the bowlers need to be in some really good form for India to strike the balance in the team.

Rested Players: The players rested for the not so important Zimbabwe tour are back and this adds a whole new flavor to the team. However, Sachin Tendulkar will be missed by his team mates and the spectators alike. On leaving out Yuvraj , I would go with Kiran More’s stance that he should have been part of the squad even if he was injured keeping the 2011 world cup in hindsight.

Combination: Dhoni’s captaincy is critical for India to do well in this tournament. He has been handling the troops long enough now to understand how to manage the strengths and weaknesses in the team. It is most important for Dhoni that he has both Viru and Gauti firing in the opening slot and everyone knows that it could be doomsday for the opposition if these two get going. The middle order then really comes in to play if they get India a good start. Although inexperienced at this particular format, but Virat , Raina and Rohit Sharma have proven their class act already and this is the ideal stage for them to feature in the absence of Tendulkar and Yuvraj. The bowling department really needs Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh in good form and the rest to support them but I feel Ishant Sharma and Irfan Pathan would both be missed.

Prospects: Indian prospects are heavily dependent on their batting and this in turn depends on the conditions and the form of their openers. The first match would set the tone of the tournament for India and it is a good opportunity for India to get their act together against Bangladesh which is the relatively weaker side.

My Playing Eleven: Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni (capt & wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Harbhajan Singh, Praveen Kumar, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra.

Opening Statement: The Pakistan squad looks balanced as far as the 15 members are concerned but it is yet to be seen if they take the balance forward into the playing 11 as well. Pakistan has recently had this problem of playing with too many batsmen or all-rounders and sometimes their bowling lacks the capacity the captain would like to have in a certain situation.

Comebacks: With both the Shoaibs back, Pakistan would hope for some decency in the bowling and middle order batting departments, however, comebacks are never easy and especially when you are up against sides like India and SriLanka. Most probably the strategy from both sides would be to hit hard at Shoaib Akhtar in his early matches so that he doesn’t feel at home with his return act. Similar should be the case with Malik, who is a slow starter, and if they bowl good line and length deliveries to him, they can easily shake him up. Another comeback that has almost gone unnoticed is that of Imran Farhat.

New Comers: Although there are a few newcomers in the side, but it is still to be seen how many of them actually get to play on the field considering the short span of the tournament and the format with no margin of error whatsoever. Shahzaib Hassan, Umar Amin and Asad Shafiq have been included on their recent form.

Combination: Now this can be the tricky part with Pakistan. They played too many spinners in the T20 World cup and they might be tempted to play too many batsmen in the Asia cup considering their recent form in the 50 over genre. An ideal combination shall always feature Shoaib Akhtar and Amir balling together – that would be fun to watch. If both are at their best, they would be difficult to handle. Even with the new guys the middle order is strong enough to unsettle any bowling attack on their day. Umar Akmal is in very good form and if he carries this into the Asia cup, it would be an entertaining affair altogether. Shoaib Mailk’s addition in the middle order would be a bonus but I am still confused how Afridi would place himself and Kamran Akmal in the batting order. With three openers selected in a squad of fifteen, one should assume that Kamran would not be opening but you never know with Pakistan and their last minute decisions.

My Playing Eleven: Salman Butt, Shahzaib Hassan , Shoaib Malik , Umar Akmal ,Umar Amin, Kamran Akmal , Abdul Razzaq, Shahid Afridi, Muhammad Amir, Shoaib Akhtar & Saeed Ajmal (in the order of batting)

My first recollections of Lalit Kumar Modi were in the days when ICL began to emerge as a cricket league and BCCI directly felt threatened from it. To counter ICL, BCCI came up with the idea of IPL. I was always unaware why Modi was originally made the commissioner but generally it appeared as if it was his idea. Unconfirmed sources do tell us that he originally came up with the idea of league cricket in India way before the ICL came into being. Once the ICL threat settled in, BCCI started to look at ways to counter it and Modi’s idea was picked up. Since it was his idea, he was made the commissioner.

When IPL started back in 2008, cricket was a game merely watched on the TV. There were these sites like cricinfo and cricbuzz but it wasn’t a trend with the masses. Generally one would switch to a website when in office or when a certain match was missed. Credit must go to Modi and his team here, the way he changed things. It started off in 2008, then bettered in 2009 and in 2010 the ipl website launched delivered the best cricketing experience on web ever with a real ‘awe factor’.

I am not sure if it was Modi or some of his team members, but since he was leading the show, I have no hesitation in giving him the credit for revolutionizing the way cricket is being watched on the web. In 2010, IPL stuck deals with Google and aired the experience over YouTube. At times even YouTube fell short of the bandwidth required to manage such a huge audience. It is unknown how much was earned but the idea of serving ads on YouTube for the free broadcast is something only Modi and his team could think of in all those years. I recall visiting the ICC site during the world cup of 2007 and I could hardly find the world cup schedule. It was hidden somewhere ‘aloof and miserable’ and had to be downloaded as a pdf document. Even ICL had a useful website in their first season but they simply neglected it in the second and couldn’t really match up with IPL’s antics on the web.

As a commissioner of the hugely popular tournament, Modi adapted to the growing trends in the world of technology. Even the fact that it was his twitter account that created this controversy that led to his suspension, is something a technology lover like me would easily settle for. For me, it has always been good to watch the way he has carried the IPL image on the internet using social media and the IPL website. Also in 2010, Modi and his team tried a whole lot of new ideas including showing the final live at Lords in 3D and showing the matches ‘ad-free’ in cinemas. Some of these might not have been that effective but nevertheless some fresh ideas were much needed to modernize the way the game of cricket is being viewed.

One thing that I must not miss out while mentioning Modi’s services in bringing the technology revolution to cricket is the mobile front. For all focus of administrators of various tournaments before him, was on the TV rights, he almost gave birth to mobile rights in cricket. IPL second season saw releases of mobile content, live mobile streaming, mobile wap site with community features as well as a mobile application branded for IPL. Then in the third season in 2010, IPL kept up with the mobile tradition and this time also catching in on the Iphone fever with an IPhone app.

Many would argue if I should attribute the above credits to Modi. But I do have a reason for it. I have personally been involved in sports administration for a while and have had a chance to meet different cricket organizers around the world. Being a technology person as well, I have always tried to tempt these guys into bringing technology into the game; however, the responses have never been satisfactory. It’s always about following the same old trend and being cautious while experimenting. Also their lack of understanding of technology is one huge factor, things don’t move along. Watching the IPL creates new properties on the web, wap and mobile, I have always had a feeling that this is very much due to the ‘Lalit Modi factor’. This is something we can get from a progressive individual like him and not from the ‘regular administrators’ who would use their PA to type emails and it would take a day to teach them how to ‘tweet’ from their mobile. Let’s hope that even if he doesn’t survive the current battle, the trends set by him are at least continued by the successor, if not bettered.

These were the remarks of one of our fans on the recent Afridi debacle. However, I feel we need to look at the bigger picture since the issue really is the future of Pakistan Cricket team. There have been so many views from all corners including past players, politicians, general public regarding what needs to be done to change the course of cricket in Pakistan. The solutions ranging from changing of captain to dropping players to changing the cricket board chairman. Some would go as far as saying that cricket shall be banned from Pakistan. Frankly speaking, every such thing has been tried. The results are always on the negative side. It is also notable that every former cricketer believes there is lot of talent in Pakistan; only the problem that the system needs better organizers. I believe there is one aspect that everyone is missing out in all this discussion. There seems to be a wide spread lack of discipline amongst the current cricketing lot. To me, this lack of discipline is something that needs to be taken seriously and dealt with.

Pakistan has always complained about the domestic structure. For whatever reasons, the structure still remains the same and doesn’t seem to produce the results for them. Still talented individuals come about from nowhere really. These youngsters model themselves on cricketing heroes of their times. This is the inspirational source that produced all the fast bowlers that Pakistan cricket boasts about. It is a fact that any field of the life and in any region of the world young generation gets inspiration and models themselves on their heroes. This is where I believe Pakistan is lacking. If we go into the era of 60s, 70s till mid 80s one will find cricketing heroes like Hafeez Kardar, Fazal Mehmood, Hanif Mohammad and Imran Khan. All these were internationally recognized and respected not only for their cricketing heroics but their gentleman attitude towards the game. The generation that was blooming in the 90s had people like Wasim, Waqar, Inzamam, Saeed Anwar and Aamir Sohail who would always tell the world that their inspirational models were greats like Imran and Javed Miandad. Most readers would remember that Pakistan was at their peak in the 90s also winning the world cup in 92. However, something seriously went wrong afterwards.

The problem started in that period and continues till today. Player revolts, drug incidents, fighting incidents etc. became a routine in the post Imran Khan Era. This problem has worsened today.  The Pakistani young cricketers of today are following the ‘role models’ that are leading them to all sorts of wrong directions. Almost every other guy in the team has either an established discipline related issue or the non established (unauthentic) one. Nevertheless, everything is in the media and the youngster is in for a problem since he’s following the ‘wrong heroes’.

Consider this:

• Shahid Afridi: The ball biting hero who has also been caught on camera damaging the pitch in the past. On top of that his unusual style of play has really damaged the young generation as they don’t want to play with a straight bat and want to hit every ball for six.
• Shoaib Malik: His dressing room attitude was questioned recently by a section of Pakistani press. Earlier he has been in the press for a marriage conflict with an Indian girl.
• Younis Khan: Inconsistent attitude towards game. Resigned days before a major tournament, then took back the resignation. Recent incident was that he went on a fishing trip to some remote area and didn’t attend the selection meeting for the tour.
• Muhammad Asif: After being sent back from the Champions Trophy caught taking banned substances, he still had enough depth in his character to get caught with drugs in the UAE.
• Shoaib Akhtar: Do I need to write something?

The list can go further than this and the traces of this can also be found back in time where Waqar, Wasim and Aqib were caught on a West Indian beach with some drugs. Generally the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has been supportive of their players and this attitude has always led to even more indiscipline. With these sorts of role models and a really feeble domestic structure I don’t understand how Pakistan cricket would survive the competitive times ahead.

I don’t know if all the readers would agree to this, and I would love to have some comments, but concluding the post, if someone asks me for a one word solution to all of Pakistan cricket’s problems. My answer would definitely be ‘DISCIPLINE’.

The indications of an evident rebuff were seen when Pakistan T20 captain Shahid Afridi went under the hammer to start the auction. Shahid Afridi is one the worlds most wanted players, but no franchise was ready to add him up.  Richard Madley banged his gavel and moved on for other names as no bids were coming for Afridi. Shahid Afridi later claimed that IPL had made fun of Pakistani cricketers. Afridi said, “I feel bad for Indian fans, which are going to miss me playing cricket in IPL this year.”

The silence inside the Trident Hotel spoke a million words of a full scale political war. It seems that IPL has made fun of Pakistan by treating them this way. Pakistanis are World T20 champions and the attitude franchise owners opted was disappointing.

Sohail Tanveer became the second victim. He was the leading wicket taker during the first edition of IPL in 2008. When his name was announced by the auctioneer, the silence continued from franchisers. Tanveer was disappointed with the auction because some franchises had shown interest in singing him in the weeks leading up the auction. Tanveer said that if franchisers don’t want us playing in IPL then they should be clear about it in the first place. He later added, “They mean to say none of our players are good enough to be in IPL”.

The decision taken by franchises is based on political grounds rather than cricketing sense. They should be ashamed as they have hurt image of cricket as sport. At first, Indians made the fuss about visa clearance and then the security issues were raised. The IPL commissioner Lalit Kumar Modi is trying to deflect attention away from this issue. He claims that each team was having their own strategy during the auction. The key factor involved in the auction was availability of the players. The franchise owners have also agreed with Modi that the decision to snub Pakistani players was based on availability for the entire IPL season.

The players like Afridi, Tanveer, Razzaq and Gul are still available during the IPL. They have no international or other domestic commitments; even then they were left unsold. Preity Zinta, owner of Kings XI Punjab, also claimed that availability of players was the only decision making factor during the auction. Any how, the current situation after the auction still portrays that some biasness was shown during the auction.

After enjoying two successful editions of IPL, Lalit Modi is going to face a tough situation this year as he has to face the obligations from PCB and Pakistani players. Whatever is claimed by Lalit Modi and franchise owners, one thing is for sure that IPL can no more claim to be the best cricket league in the world.

If players like Muhammad Kaif and Damien Martyn are purchased on basis of their T20 performance then how it could be possible to leave the entire team of World T20 Champions unsold? The Indians are still unable to answer this question.

The cricketing circles and fans in Pakistan still believe that the auction was completely biased and was based on political tensions between India and Pakistan. Pakistani players have high values and are the best in T20 cricket in the world.

The fielding will be crucial and Sri Lankans have certainly showed a lot more commitment than the Indians have. India have some of the finest fielders in the world including Kohli, Jadeja, Raina and Yuvraj and Dhoni. Gambhir, Harbhajan and Sehwag have safe and good throwing arms but it is in the extra effort or the lack of it at the boundary in the final overs of the innings that India gives away some runs which can be critical in a close game. If India can somehow make more fielding efforts, then they will be a formidable team since their batting and bowling is top class.

Amit Mishra has certainly made a place in team after his crafty bowling in the two games he has played. Dhoni and the Indian selectors have to think about including him into playing XI for the final match.

A leg-spinner can be a match turner in limited overs matches. Dhoni is only worried about Yuvraj Singh as he was dismissed twice playing down the wrong line. Yuvraj is a world class player and just requires a little to get back to form. His bowling is also useful as Dhoni can use him as a part timer.

The most pleasing thing through-out the series has been the form of Virat Kohli. He has grabbed the opportunity after Tendulkar rested for the series. He has performed with batting at the highest caliber. Gambhir has not been so consistent but hard-work can improve his performance as well. India have just a few issues left about their batting. Since Zaheer Khan is back in the bowling line so for the final, the bowling will be in good hands.

An opposition team with players like Dilshan, Sangakara, Samaraweera and Jayewardene, no bowling attack can feel safe. Along with other players, if Tharanga gives some time out in the middle then Sri Lankans can put a huge score on the board. There is Perera in Sri Lankan squad who can tear an attack in the final overs so it does promise to be a great final. Sri Lanka have a better record in a multi-nation tournament than India and the final will finally decide after encounters that which is the better ODI team.

There are many interesting aspects of this particular system and there must have been a detailed discussion regarding this within the ICC. They must have discussed with the umpiring staff since the umpires are the ones who might have to overturn their decision. It still is a bit humiliating if the umpire makes a wrong decision and then has to overturn it. However, it saves the umpire from the guilt of giving someone out wrongly. So I would guess umpires wouldn’t have a problem with it. In fact I believe if I would have been an umpire I would have wanted more use of technology especially in case of LBW decisions. However the critics of technology do have a point. It takes away the human angle from the game.

Another aspect to consider is from the batsman’s point of view. I believe the system helps the batsmen the most since they are the ones who know if they have been given out wrongly. There are generally two modes of dismissals that they umpires find difficult to judge – the LBW and the bat-pad catch. In both the cases the batsmen are in a better position to tell whether it’s out or not as compared to the umpire. So if they have the review appeal available to them, it does give them to overturn a decision wrongly made by the umpires. Even in the case of LBW, generally the batsman knows 80% of the time if he is in front and also has a fair idea of the height of the delivery. Ideally a batsman calling for a review should be right 95% of the time. One does feel that if reviews are available at the end of the innings, these might be called in case of LBW decisions just to take a chance. But with only 3 unsuccessful challenges available, this can’t happen for every decision.

The third aspect to consider is from a bowler’s point of view. Generally bowlers are optimistic about LBWs and Bat-Pads and this optimism can lead to wasting the review challenge. Generally I believe bowlers would lose more challenges than batsmen. Again they might be careful in the early stages of a match but if reviews are available, they are more likely to be taken towards the end of the match and this is something that makes the end more interesting.

The squad included the 11 players who played in the first Test at Centurion plus batsman Alviro Petersen, all-rounder Ryan McLaren and fast bowler Dale Steyn. Dropped from the original 15-man squad for the first Test was left-arm fast bowler Wayne Parnell. Steyn was due to play at Centurion but was withdrawn from the side because of a tight hamstring on the morning of the match.

The squad: Graeme Smith (capt), Hashim Amla, Mark Boucher, AB de Villiers, Friedel de Wet, JP Duminy, Paul Harris, Jacques Kallis, Ryan McLaren, Morne Morkel, Makhaya Ntini, Alviro Petersen, Ashwell Prince, Dale Steyn.

We have not been winning matches which means we are not really familiar to the winning culture. For the winning culture, a team culture is as important as the team itself. The Pakistan team comprises players coming from various areas of the country. Whenever a new player walks into the national side, it is seen often that instead of adopting the team culture, he brings his own to the side, and honestly speaking he is not at fault either because there is no ‘team culture’ which exists here that can help the newcomer to shape in. This ‘individual culture’ is extremely damaging for the team because it gets uglier with the passage of time, pollutes the atmosphere of the dressing room, and ultimately results in disintegration.

If the majority of players belong to a certain region in the country, the language spoken by them eventually becomes the language of the dressing room. This often makes others feel isolated and neglected and affects their performance. At one point in time, the Indian cricket team faced similar problems but the BCCI worked hard to resolve all such issues and it worked wonders for their side’s morale. To overcome all the above mentioned issues, a code of conduct is the need of the hour.

The implementation of a certain code of conduct could surely pave the way for developing a team culture which, in turn, will eliminate all kinds of groupings among the players. But it has been achieved in the past. It was Imran Khan’s era and he managed to cultivate a team culture which prevailed over everything else and did Pakistan proud. Unfortunately, it ended completely in the six to eight years of his departure.

Developing team culture is not something that is achieved overnight. Besides the captain, the coach is the key person who can achieve that, with hard work and skills. A good coach never delegates this responsibility to the players. All over the world, when the coaches talk about ‘turning a team around,’ they recognise they need to change the team culture.

If a coach shows keen interest in the performance of the players, helps in sorting out their problems with wisdom and patience, works on their techniques, he will most likely be able to extract good result. The players will take pride in their achievements, in being a part of the team and will start believing in themselves. This could boost the decision-making process, which is the key in cricket.

There are clear signs which indicate that team culture is in tatters. Firstly, when the team is playing below its capability, when the team support staff is constantly complaining, there is visible conflict in decision making on the field and when there is little response from them at the team meetings.

Some coaches also err by not fully grasping the importance of team culture and its intricacies. If your team is experiencing internal friction, simply announcing that ‘we’ll have no more bickering in the team’ will not do anything.

In such times, one must work hard to discover what is interfering with the team culture and devise a strategy to remove the obstacles to put the right system in place. Tinkering with team culture thoughtlessly can be devastating. Thus it is vital that you involve the other members of setup in determining the problems, and removing them.

Problems may also occur when captains and coaches have certain expectations of some players while giving less weight-age to the others. Nobody performs poorly because they don’t try but they need to be guided and groomed. You need to be vigilant in guarding against communicating low expectations to your players based on cultural differences. It is a very subtle, but powerful and destructive form of discrimination and must be avoided at all cost.

Some of the dismissals of some of the batsmen raised questions why they were picked in the first place for national duty. This tempted me to have a look at their current form in the domestic circuit. The most recent tournament played was Quaid – e – Azam Trophy 2009/10. The top performers in this tournament (playing 4 or more matches) are as under:

There are some familiar names here. The first one that strikes the chord is Misbah-ul-Haq. Apparently when Younis quit and Yousuf was made captain, he asked of the selectors to bring in the senior batsman but the selectors had some issues with it. I fail to understand what these issues were since he is topping the list and scored a double century (284) for his domestic side. Although they have sent him after the loss in the first test but one wonders why they had to wait as it clearly is a selection blunder that he is not part of this line up.

Then as we go down the table we see Fawad Alam and since the guy is compiling loads of runs in domestic, therefore, it’s fair enough he’s given a chance in the national team. Another familiar name is Khalid Latif, who was also part of the team for the ODIs against New Zealand. Khurram Manzoor was considered for the Tests before him because the selectors feel Khalid’s style of cricket suits ODIs more than Tests. Some would take this as an argument and some would say that if such was the case why India plays Sehwag in their test line up. However we can give the Pakistan selectors the benefit of the doubt here.

It’s important though, to look at the guys who were actually picked for the opening slot. Imran Farhat played 5 innings and scored at an average of 35.80 and Salman had the same number of innings and scored at an average of 52.25. Interestingly, Farhat was picked ahead of Salman for the first Test Match. Taufiq Umar, a fellow left handed opener, was not picked in the squad despite two centuries and an average of 51.66. Another person who was picked ahead of others in the list is Faisal Iqbal. Although he hasn’t played as yet, but his recent form in the Quaid-e-Azam trophy was poor managing to score just one fifty in 6 innings with an average of 28.8 runs. Shoaib Malik only played 2 tests and could manage an average of 22 which by the way is equal to the average Muhammad Aamer managed in the similar number of games.

I do understand selectors have their reasons for picking or not picking guys e.g. some of the guys who have 4 and 3 centuries to their names are either too inexperienced (Naved Yasin) or maybe their current form doesn’t prevail throughout their careers (Muhammad Ayub). Also if we simply pick players on averages then even Umar Akmal had an average of 32 and there are loads of batsmen with higher averages in this table. But at the same time if someone is picked there must be some logic behind the decision. Misbah not being picked is certainly a blunder. Trying Imran Farhat ahead of Khalid Latif, Salman Butt and Taufiq Umar is also something I can’t understand. Faisal Iqbal picked ahead of Hasan Raza and Misbah ul Haq in the middle order doesn’t make a lot of sense either.

The Pakistan team is going down and down in the Test Rankings. Although they may still be a brutal force in T20s and ODIs, the time has come that they seriously need to sit down and revive their Test cricket. Selection is an important part of this revival and the selectors have to do their job to the best of their potential and also by analyzing the current form data. It seems the current selection is merely a compilation of personal choices rather than a calculated effort to put up a good team.