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.

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 I was always unaware why Modi was originally made the commissioner but generally it appeared as if it was his idea.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’.