Razzaq future captain of Pakistan

The Pakistan team has been out of the country for a long time and has returned home triumphant. Admittedly, neither Bangladesh nor the West Indies provided any kind of opposition but winning is habit-forming.

When the opposition is soft rather than stern, there is the temptation to take one's foot off the pedal.

I am glad that Pakistan did not do so and what we saw was a thoroughly professional team going about its business with the single aim of winning. Everyone made runs or took wickets with the exception of Inzamamul Haq, convincing proof that even a great batsman is entitled to a lean patch. Nothing delighted me more than Shoaib Malik, promoted in the batting order, make a hundred and Mohammad Sami get a hat trick. Both players have served notice to the seniors that they are in contention.

Shoaib Malik batted with a maturity that belied his years and after he was past fifty, he batted with authority, as if making hundreds was second nature to him. Sami was sharp, was able to get reverse swing and most of all, he was accurate. We all had our finger crossed for Shoaib Akhtar and I sincerely hope that there won't be any more fuss about his bowling action. He needs to get an all clear, much the way that Muttiah Muralitharan has, and his fate should not be left to the whims of some individual umpire.

Shoaib Akhtar is a genuine fast bowler and he is a showman, the combination makes him a star. But apart from this, he also happens to be a very good bowler who has learnt to use his head, learnt to vary his pace and use the bouncer sparingly. He knows that his job is to take wickets and not merely to frighten the living daylights of the batsmen.

But the player for me remains Abdul Razzaq. That he has modified his name from Abdur to Abdul has not made the slightest difference to this man for all seasons. He has become Pakistan's most dependable cricketer and one of the finest all-rounders in the game. He gives the impression of being without emotion, an ice-man, but his young years come through when he gets a wicket and produces a wall-to-wall smile or hits one of his flat, outrageous sixes and his body-language suggests that God is in his heaven and all's well with the world.

Razzaq will have a stint with Middlesex this summer and it will do him a world of good. There is no doubt in my mind that he is a future captain of Pakistan. We should start grooming him. The West Indies fight-back came too late but I'm glad they got a consolation win and didn't go home empty handed.

I would have thought that the Australians would have been the last team in the world that would change horses midstream. The sacking of Steve Waugh as the captain of the one-day squad came without any warning. I refuse to believe that the fact that Australia was ousted from its own triangular tournament has anything to do with it. Something else must have been stirring.

I cannot think of a cricketer in recent times who gave more than hundred per cent to his team and I think that he has been shabbily treated. But modern cricket has become a cruel game. Steve Waugh was getting on in years but ask his opponents and they will say that his sacking is the best thing to have happened for them! He was a ruthless captain, he played to win and he drilled his team, be it Test or one-day, into one of the finest in the history of the game.

It remains to be seen if Ricky Ponting can hold the team together, particularly since the claims of Adam Gilchrist and Shane Warne were overlooked. They will probably rally around the new one-day captain but, in the final analysis, they are human beings and it will be a supreme test of character if they can suppress the disappointment they must feel, particularly Gilchrist, destined to the best man but not the groom.

One presumes that the Australian selectors know what they are doing, their decisions have been unanimous which makes me a little suspicious. Could there be more in Steve Waugh's sacking than meets the eye? Ponting might surprise us yet and be just the sort of captain Australia's needs to defend their title of world champions but Steve Waugh is a tough act to follow. No matter how strong a team is, it still needs a captain to put it all together.

By making such a song and dance about Sunil Gavaskar's comments, the England cricket establishment is proving to the hilt that the England team are the "unbeatable wingers" of the game. Gavaskar is now a media person and has every right to express his opinion. We take a lot of nonsense from the English media who are not always kind about the subcontinent.

That there is any conflict of interest between Gavaskar's job with the ICC and his writing is so much nonsense. To have raised it is a kind of whinging. I have a lot of time for Gavaskar. He's a straight shooter and always fair. England must get on with the game. They are not finding it all that easy in New Zealand.