Pakistan lost...maybe found?
The World Cup is closer than round the corner and Pakistan are in disarray
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan
25-Feb-2013
The World Cup is closer than round the corner and Pakistan are in disarray. Morale is down, players unfit, the doping issue still lurks, threatening to rear its head any moment; what better time than now, then, for a few words from the straightest of straight talkers, Rashid Latif, to put things in perspective? In a guest column for Dawn, Latif says that though it looks bad, all may not be lost just yet.
All this talk of World Cup ‘pressure’ is also getting to me now. What pressure are they talking about? In my opinion , all these people have fairly mixed-up notions about ‘pressure’ and ‘reality’. Pressure is what the poor people are facing for their survival, for their do-or-die efforts in trying to feed their families. There is no pressure in cricket compared to that. Yes, I know a victory in any big tournament can be tremendously difficult to pull off for any team or coach, even for those who are considered favourites. But that, in short, is their job; a reality that they know they will be facing in due course of time and they must prepare themselves well for it.
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan is a former assistant editor at Cricinfo