Pakistan tour of England an outstanding success

No part is greater than the whole has been amply demonstrated by the Pakistan team. Beset with injuries and tantrums, Waqar Younis and his men have shrugged them off and focused on team work. That Waqar has led from the front has helped enormously. No matter what happens in the final of the NatWest Trophy, Pakistan's tour of England has been a success, beyond all expectations.

Winning the final will be the icing on the cake and though the Australians look invincible, if one team can knock them off the pedestal, it is Pakistan.

There are two ways of looking at Pakistan's thumping win against England at Headingley. One is to concentrate on the positive, that is the truly magnificent bowling of Waqar or on the negative, which was the crowd invasion of the pitch while Pakistan still needed two runs to win. It was disgraceful and since all of these enthusiasts were Pakistani supporters, it takes the gloss off Pakistan's fine win. But first to Waqar. It's all very well to say that the conditions were ideal for swing and seam bowling, the fact remains that you have to bowl well to exploit the conditions.

I have seen Waqar and Wasim bowling in tandem, demolishing the opponents, one of the greatest pairing of fast bowlers in cricket. But I don't think Waqar has bowled better than that he did at Headingley or let me say, that this was the original Waqar. He had England reeling and by the time he had bowled out his ten overs, he had reduced England to 58 for seven, taking all the seven wickets.

England effected a partial recovery only because Waqar was not bowling. That the others were not able to exploit the conditions means simply that the conditions were not decisive and one needed a bowler of the genius of Waqar to use them with deadly effect, a point missed by the television commentators who kept on bemoaning the loss of the toss. And the fact that there was a cloud cover, as if, this was a freak condition. If England need new players, they also need new commentators. Bob Willis was so gloomy, he sounded as if he was reading a sermon at a memorial service.

But there was more than Waqar at Headingley. There was a brilliant innings from Razzaq, runs of impeccable breeding, a cultured innings. Abdur Razzaq has been shunted up and down like a goods train carriage in both the Tests and the One-day Internationals and appears to have accepted this uncomplainingly. It must surely go to the character of the young man that he has placed the interest of the team ahead of his own preferences. I see the future of Pakistan cricket built around him. He is captain material and he should be groomed for the job from now.

The tour selection committee does not share the high opinion of many experts of Imran Nazir. A great pity that someone like Imran Khan is not around. I have little doubt that he would have given the same encouragement to Imran Nazir that he gave to Inzamamul Haq and indeed Waqar. But something will have to be done to stop supporters running on the playing area. The television commentators hammered in the point that these were Pakistani supporters, as indeed they were. Harsh penalties were being recommended and I am in agreement. We cannot allow a group of supporters to ruin the watching pleasure of the general public, nor allow them to endanger their safety. A security guard was stretched out. It could have been many more people, including children.

Bringing fire-crackers to the ground is a kind of madness and in no circumstances should it be allowed. I think too that community leaders should try and impress upon the supporters that there are other ways of cheering for one's team than resorting to what amounts to hooliganism. It was a shameful sight and the manager of the Pakistan team should mince no words in rejecting this kind of support. All it does is bring a bad name to Pakistan.

I am completely in the dark about what led to Shoaib Akhtar to leave the team and the PCB has yet to come out with an official version. It has not helped that Shoaib Akhtar who was presumably unfit to play for Pakistan finds himself fit enough to sign on and play village cricket for the Lashings Cricket Club, a private cricket club owned by an English millionaire who has also signed on Brian Lara. Do we have another Kerry Packer in the making?

Shoaib Akhtar has been mollycoddled by the PCB. Is this a case of sparing the rod and spoiling the child? I cannot think of any other player in the history of cricket on whom so much attention was lavished. Has he found the pressure of being Shoaib Akhtar too hot to handle? If so, he has brought it on himself. He relished the limelight but could not cope with its glare.

Shoaib Akhtar could have been a match-winning bowler for Pakistan but is it a case of what the poet wrote: "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen. And waste its perfume in the desert air?" I don't wish to write about him in the past tense. But what the future holds for Shoaib Akhtar depends very much on him and nobody else. He needs to come to terms with himself. He can start by acknowledging that he has let the PCB and Pakistan cricket down. And then pick himself up and start afresh. He can still become the Rawalpindi Express but one that does not get derailed regularly.