Ahmer Naqvi
No home advantage in World Cups
A small pool of teams could be an important reason why only one team has lifted the trophy in front of its home crowd
Ahmer Naqvi
21-Jul-2014
When MS Dhoni hit the six towards long-on to win the 2011 World Cup, it was the first time in cricket's history that the winning side was playing in front of its home crowd. I was reminded of this fact during the recently concluded football version of the same event, where home nations have won six out of 19 tournaments.
Home advantage is a well-discussed and dissected facet of sport, and it holds true in almost all kinds of sports. The presence of supporters, of a familiar place and climate, of pressure on referees, are some reasons why home advantage works so well. In cricket, where external conditions like the weather and the pitch make so much of a difference, there is generally a tendency for home sides to win matches. So why have cricket's World Cups not yielded more winners at home?
Let's take a look at the basic numbers first, using the football World Cup as a comparison. In ten ICC World Cups, only twice have the finalists included a team playing in front of a home crowd. On three occasions (Australia in 1992, England in 1999 and South African in 2003) the hosts haven't made it to the knockout stages*. In 19 FIFA World Cups, only once (South Africa in 2010) have the hosts failed to make it to the knockouts, and only three times (Italy in 1990, Germany in 2006 and Brazil in 2014) did the hosts fail to record their best-ever finish.
Full postSport's what you make of it
The beauty of sport is that it can take on a variety of meanings, depending on where you stand
Ahmer Naqvi
25-Jun-2014
These days the focus of much of the world is on the FIFA World Cup underway in Brazil. This particular edition has been particularly popular for being the most exciting in living memory. There have been a huge number of goals and upsets, and no fan could have asked for more. As one person wrote, opposing this World Cup would be like opposing joy.
And yet, there is a constant unease for anyone watching who is aware of political realities in Brazil. The tournament, the government that bid for it, and most importantly the fabulously notorious governing body, FIFA, have all been the object of vociferous protests for well over a year. Citizens have decried the massive spending on infrastructure and organising costs, which could have been used for health, education and other social services. In response, the Brazilian state has been cracking down brutally, with riot police omnipresent in the streets.
It is quite fascinating to see that Brazil has responded this way to a World Cup. After all, not only is the country the most successful in the tournament's history, it is also the one most readily associated with the game's beauty and virtue. The mythology of the World Cup itself has rested on men in canary shirts and the jogo bonito style they are meant to exemplify.
Full postIsn't it time Pakistanis were in the IPL?
There were reasons for why the two countries stopped playing each other, but they aren't all that valid anymore
Ahmer Naqvi
03-Jun-2014
The recently concluded IPL was capped by a final where the winning team chased down 200 runs quite comfortably. So let me begin this blog by planting my first marker right here: this wouldn't have happened had there been some Pakistani bowlers around.
I am not being entirely facetious here. The top three T20I wicket-takers of all time are active Pakistani players, and three Pakistani bowlers currently sit in the ICC's top ten for the format.
This year's tournament was the only time in five events that Pakistan's bowling failed to carry its misfiring batting to a WT20 semi-final (or better). And the only home ODI series India have lost in close to five years (and ten series; 11 if you include the last World Cup) is when Pakistan's attack came for a visit. Pakistani bowlers are some of the best in T20s, and they are some of the best when it comes to bowling in India.
Full postPakistan's Game of Thrones characters
Aren't there resemblances between the hit fantasy show and an unpredictable, thrilling cricket team?
Ahmer Naqvi
19-May-2014
It can be a bit taxing to write about your team/sport during the off season, and with Pakistani players needing to be retired/dual citizens/South Africans to be involved in the IPL, there is little for Pakistani cricket fans to talk about. (There are the PCB's changes and the change of coach, but those are not much fun.)
So when I was grappling for an idea for this post, my friend and Pace is Pace Yaar founder Shoaib Naveed suggested I compare Pakistani cricketers with characters from the hit TV series Game of Thrones. Now before I begin, there will be spoilers here related to the show, so please beware.
When I began thinking about this, the first connection that jumped to my mind centred around a recent twist in the show where the character Lord Petyr Baelish, aka Littlefinger, was revealed to have been even more deceptive that any of us had imagined. The shock I felt then was quite similar to the one I felt a few months ago when I realised Shoaib Malik had somehow managed to find himself in the national team again. Like Littlefinger, Malik uses his boyish looks and sharp tongue to land himself in positions of power his pedigree does not deserve.
Full postAn alternative definition for the spirit of cricket
It's the game's ability to provide struggling societies with a sense of national identity and belief
Ahmer Naqvi
27-Apr-2014
When Kumar Sangakkara led Sri Lanka to the World T20 title recently, I felt a particular sense of elation. I had long been a huge fan of the player - for his graceful strokeplay and his sharp wit. But what I loved most about him was his aggressive attitude and the ability to back that up with runs. If he were able to bowl like Wasim Akram, he would have become the ideal cricketer that I imagine myself being in heaven.
Yet many of my friends and fellow fans from Pakistan can't stand Kumar. While many tolerate his in-your-face approach, they are put off by the fact that he is celebrated as an embodiment of that woolly term "the spirit of cricket" after he delivered the MCC Spirit of Cricket Lecture in 2011. The connotations of that honour seemed to contradict the sledge-happy, umpire-needling, push-the-rules style he brought to the field.
I decided to take a look at the speech to see if I could understand the situation better, and pleasingly (but not surprisingly) the speech was not only wonderfully eloquent, it was also a grand narrative of the history of Sri Lanka and its cricket, and how the latter had helped define the former. The speech helped establish not only the coherence in Sangakkara's words and actions, but it also shed light on another meaning of the phrase "spirit of cricket", one that is frequently discussed but rarely clarified.
Full postWhy T20 is about cricket's natural evolution
The shortest format is but a logical extension of cricket's bias towards batsmen, and our changing ideas about time
Ahmer Naqvi
08-Apr-2014
In many ways, this is a piece I have meant to write for several years. The publication in these pages of a claim, made by the venerable Kartikeya Date, that T20s are not "really cricket", and the end of a spectacular World T20 means that there is no better time than now to make a case in defence of T20.
In his post, Kartikeya argued that "if cricket is a balanced contest between bat and ball, then T20 is not cricket because it has marginalised bowling to a point just short of extinction". My insight in relation to this argument perhaps comes from a different background than his, but I think there are some important points to be made from other perspectives.
For example, I have long felt that the contention that cricket - in its ideal form - represents a balanced contest between bat and ball is a fallacious one, which hides certain basic realities. I will admit that as a Pakistani fan, my arguments might be biased, but to me cricket has always seemed to be loaded unfairly towards batsmen.
Full postBrash youngsters or scapegoats?
It's easy to blame some of Pakistan's young batsmen for their brash approach but how about singling out the underperforming senior players instead?
Ahmer Naqvi
23-Mar-2014
Ahmed Shehzad was sweating bullets. He was jumpy when he walked in, he was changing gloves by the second ball of the match, and his running was a mess. He ran his opening partner out, then himself, almost, and then his captain, almost. He finally got out playing the shot of someone with an exhausted mind, tamely missing a ripping legbreak from Mishra and being stumped.
Umar Akmal was calmer. He started cautiously and picked up some boundaries in his flamboyant style. But then he started getting bogged down, suffered one of his typical brain freezes, and got out playing a terrible shot he should never have tried.
Shehzad made 22 off 17, Umar got 33 off 30.
Full postSealed with a six
Shahid Afridi's recent Mirpur heroics added a new chapter to the tradition of climactic final-over finishes in games between India and Pakistan
Ahmer Naqvi
12-Mar-2014
One of the joys of sport is that it provides the sort of clarity and definitiveness life doesn't. Wins, losses, the final score, all easily expressed as numbers that we can understand. Yet sometimes numbers, particularly in romantic encounters, fall under some sort of mystic spell.
One of my favourite such oddities is Kevin Pietersen's statistically improbable encounters with the number 158. Another example is of the Real Madrid-Barcelona rivalry and the 5-0 scoreline. Madrid won by that score in 1953 after poaching future legend Alfredo di Stefano from their rivals, while Barca won by that score in the first clasico between Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho. Both teams also exchanged wins by that score in January of 1994 and 1995, in consecutive seasons.
Pakistan and India's storied and even more dramatic rivalry also has a particular quirk. Shahid Afridi's recent Mirpur heroics added a new chapter to the tradition of the climactic final-over six in games between the two sides. Here are five games that shaped that narrative.
Full postSteyn's heady concoction
He has just about every weapon a fast bowler needs but he also possesses an irresistible aesthetic perfection
Ahmer Naqvi
26-Feb-2014
One of the interesting things about video games based on sports is that they offer a stark example of the age-old debate between style and efficiency. I can't count the number of football video games I've played where my diamond-formation, intricate-passing sides have lost to cretins who had learnt the combination of buttons required to hit 30-yard piledrivers into the goal. Inevitably, these were also people who knew little of the sport itself, and treated the exercise like any other video game where one has to use various moves to achieve a stated objective.
Those of us trying to play the video game like the sport itself are chasing an ideal style that we would like to see in the sport. In the real world, a similar tension arises, where teams try and strike a balance between playing a certain way and playing to win.
Playing to win involves efficiency and percentages, with an emphasis on increasing the probabilities of winning the game. Playing a certain way, on the other hand, looks at victory as just one objective, since winning only qualifies when it is realised with style. It is not a statistical fact, but teams and individuals pursuing the former end up winning more often than those attempting the latter.
Full postPity the poor young English cricket fan
For those who grew up watching a team that always had Kevin Pietersen in it, his departure marks the end of an era
Ahmer Naqvi
11-Feb-2014
Recently a colleague and I slipped into reminiscing about growing up in pre-2000 Pakistan. One of our fondest memories was recalling the paranoid vigilance and strategic dexterity required to speak to a member of the opposite sex on the phone. In the time of landline telephones, most houses had one number but several "extensions", which meant anyone could pick up the phone to knowingly eavesdrop or otherwise stumble into a conversation at an inopportune time. With permission to speak to the "other sex" a tenuous grey area in most desi households, even a mundane call about homework carried weighty consequences.
The sudden explosion of mobile phones completely and suddenly changed Pakistan (amongst many other societies). Around the turn of the millennium, I recall being told that Pakistan had five million landline connections, which would roughly translate to five million households with access to phones. Within a few years, it was estimated that around 80 million connections existed for mobile phones, which meant that almost half the country had their own phones. Mobiles, which came without any privacy-destroying "extensions", completely changed the rules of the game.
I was reminded of this recently when thinking about English cricket. I began to wonder how an English cricket fan aged about 20-21 now would come to experience their team's fortunes in the next few years.
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