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‘Super fit’ Shoaib Malik says he can play two more years

Shoaib Malik

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Filed Under: on Saturday 12 March 2022

Perfect security and hospitality, but imperfect pitch

The build-up to the Pakistan-Australia series, kicking-off with three Tests and following into three ODIs and one-off T20I was nothing less than perfect. The Baggy Greens landed in Pakistan expecting foolproof security and they got it. They wanted a warm welcome as promised and they received just that as the crowd in the first Test at Rawalpindi wore both their wits and hearts on its sleeves. But when it came to what Australia were really in Pakistan for, cricketing duties, they were at the least disappointed by the dead pitch prepared for the first Test. Making use of the home advantage is an art which the big cricket nations have perfected. Australia, England and South Africa trounce the visitors with bounce, swing and seam, while Asian teams prepare spinning tracks to bamboozle their opponents. It is a norm which, to be honest, adds beauty to the idea of playing at home and away. However, Pakistan, after failing to host any matches for less than a decade after the 2009 attack on the Sri Lanka team bus, may have just forgotten how to use home advantage to their actual advantage. The idea behind such a “dead, benign” turf in Rawalpindi would have been that Pakistan can exploit the day three onwards spin in the track to surprise Australia. The curators would have been given the action plan that was used by Pakistan in the UAE: we bat first, we post a big total and get the opposition out twice, or we bat second but put up a big lead and get the opposition out for an innings defeat. The plan had worked miraculously for Pakistan in the UAE under the able leadership of MisbahulHaq for a few years. However, Pakistan is no UAE when it comes to weather and pitches. Winning and losing is a part of cricket, but the curators may have taken losing to Australia, who are visiting after 24 long years, too seriously and prepared a dead wicket, which even on day four and five showed little signs of life as only 14 wickets fell during the five-day long match. Meanwhile, there is also a possibility that Pakistan had ordered such a flat track after losing out their premium pacers to injuries and Covid. Hasan Ali, Faheem Ashraf and HarisRauf were asked to sit out of the historic Test and with that a little fear may have crawled in the mind of Babar Azam and co that they might not be able put up a great resistance against the Australian premium pacers. Australia captain Pat Cummins also noted this, saying Pakistan ‘made an effort to nullify our pace attack’ by producing such a drab pitch, which resulted in 1,187 runs made on it, with only three innings played till day five. Pakistan may get away with criticism over the pitch under the cloak of happy and safe Australians. But if the other two Tests, in Karachi and then in Lahore, produce the same results due to an unhelpful pitch, then questions will surely be raised on PCB’s intentions. The second Test in Karachi will start from March 12 at the National Stadium of Karachi. Cricket fans and even the visiting Australia side would be expecting to see a better match-up between bat and ball there. However, if Pakistan come up with yet another dead surface rather than one which produces a healthy contest, it would become obvious that Pakistan want everything perfect from this tour – perfect security, perfect hospitality and sadly a perfect no-loss result in Tests.

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Filed Under: on Thursday 10 March 2022

Warner delighted to be playing in Pakistan, amazed by Islamabad's beauty

David Warner

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‘PM Imran’s leadership can make sports gender-equal in Pakistan’

“The photos of [Pakistani cricketer] Bismah Maroof and her child with the Indian women’s cricket team members have caught a lot of attention. Sport has the power to unite, clearly. But the question we need to also ask is whether women athletes are supported by federations or governments when they choose to be a mother in the middle of a career?” the newly-appointed Chief Executive Officer for the first-ever Global Observatory (GO) for Women, Sport, Physical Education and Physical Activity Dr Payoshni Mitra reflected, as we conversed about her role in a unique position that will be affecting the future of the sports. The GO is a direct result of the Kazan Action Plan adopted in 2017 by the International Conference of Ministers and Senior Officials Responsible for Physical Education and Sport (MINEPS) of UNESCO. While her appointment was confirmed on January 27, Payoshni, a former athlete herself understands the challenges that women face when it comes to sports. “Providing safe space, ensuring funding, salary, sponsorships as well as support to women athletes during and after pregnancy are issues we need to pay attention to,” she urges as we talked about the 2022 International Women’s Day. The first steps are to bring attention to the existing problems and recognise the loopholes in the systems quantitatively and qualitatively through consolidated data, even though the inequalities towards the development for women are very real but there is a need for more investment in the subject of women and sports. The GO will be working as an “incubating association” according to the UNESCO website. Here are the insights by the first woman to hold the position as the CEO of the GO. ET: What is your vision for the GO and what does it mean for you as a former athlete yourself? Payoshni: Sport has been mostly governed by men, be it at the international or at the national level. International sport governance has also been extremely Eurocentric. The GO will be conscious of this unequal history and will attempt to help make sporting culture more gender-equal, just and inclusive. The GO will also try to use sport as a tool to promote gender equality in the larger society. ET: This is a first of its kind project. How do you think it can help athletes in South Asia? Will the women athletes and sports community in countries like Pakistan be able to benefit from the research work in the future? Payoshni: The GO will aim to find the knowledge gaps in sport research and data and initiate further research accordingly. We’re aware that data-collection on girls and women’s participation, leadership, media representation, gender discriminations or other barriers have not taken place as extensively in South Asian countries as in many parts of the Global North. Since the GO was initiated at the MINEPS, we plan to engage with national governments across the world in order to ensure that national sport ministries pay equal attention to including girls and women in sports. Pakistan is one of the rarest examples where a great sportsperson is leading the country. We hope that Prime Minister Imran Khan’s leadership will be crucial in making sport more gender-equal in Pakistan. GO looks forward to it. ET: Please share the challenges that you faced while doing your job as a researcher and athletes’ rights activist? Payoshni: Often governments and federations take initiative to make sports accessible to girls and women, allocate funds but these initiatives are often short term and lack a long term goal. Real change can only happen when there is genuine will among the leaders to change things for the better for girls and women. ET: What do you think are the most important issues concerning women and sport today? Payoshni: The International Olympic Committee has recently published their Gender Equality report. The key issues are participation of girls and women in sports, gender equality in sports leadership, portrayal of girls and women athletes in the media, safeguarding issues in sports and equal resource allocation for all. These are all very important issues and the GO will try to look into knowledge gaps concerning all these thematic areas. But as a former athlete who experienced abuse, I am particular keen to ensuring that girls and women, who join sport experience it positively, feel safe in sport and do not face gender discrimination or abuse. ET: It is absolutely groundbreaking to have a South Asian woman leading this important project. What is your message for the women athletes, coaches and trainers, and academics working in the field? Payoshni: If we have genuine will, we will find a way. One thing that helped in my case was perseverance. If we keep persisting, we will get where no one else before us have reached.

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Filed Under: on Tuesday 8 March 2022

Cummins shares 'cool moment' of hearing Adhan while training

Cummins shares 'cool moment' of hearing Adhan while training

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Filed Under: on Monday 7 March 2022

Shane Warne, the man who made it cool to be a leg-spinner

There have been many great cricketers in the sport's long history but few have changed the game quite like Australia's Shane Warne did during his brilliant career. Warne, whose death at the age of just 52 from a suspected heart attack in Thailand on Friday sent shockwaves through the game, single-handedly revived the art of leg-spin bowling, a skill that had all but disappeared from Test cricket following the end of Abdul Qadir's career with Pakistan. "The game was never the same after Warnie emerged, and the game will never be the same after his passing," said current Australia captain Pat Cummins, leading the team in the ongoing first Test of their tour of Pakistan. But Warne's return of one wicket for 150 runs on Test debut against India at Sydney in 1992, during an innings where opener Ravi Shastri made a double century and future batting great Sachin Tendulkar 148, was no-one's idea of a dream start. Yet there were a couple of clues even then that he was no ordinary bowler. For one thing he bowled 45 overs, a hefty burden even for a spinner not under as much physical strain as a fast bowler, albeit he defied convention by walking to the crease. That debut return meant Warne had conceded slightly more than three runs per over an average, with one of the hallmark of a career that saw him become the first man to take 700 Test wickets being an astounding ability to generate sharp spin with a degree of miserly control widely thought to be beyond the realm of any leg-spinner. And then there was the way he played the game. With his dyed blonde hair, stud ear-ring and willingness to 'sledge' or verbally abuse opposition batsmen, he had the look and attitude of an aggressive quick, with fast bowling then the dominant force among most Test attacks. True, former Australia captain Richie Benaud, a leg-spinning all-rounder, had been something of a 'pin-up' with his shirt unbuttoned to the waist during the 1950s and 60s. But that was in an era of newsreel and black-and-white TV. By the time Warne emerged in vivid colour, Benaud was far more widely known as a television broadcaster than as a cricketer. And so it was appropriate that Benaud was on hand to commentate on the 'Ball of the Century', as Warne's first delivery in a Test in England, at Old Trafford in 1993, became known. Warne produced a remarkable leg-break that pitched outside the pads of England's Mike Gatting, a renowned player of spin-bowling, and then spun across the width of the stout batsman to clip the top of off stump. "And he's done it," said Benaud after Warne had clean bowled Gatting. "He's started off with the most beautiful delivery. "Gatting has absolutely no idea what has happened to it," with Benaud adding, as the bewildered former England captain looked round: "He still doesn't know." So extraordinary was the delivery, the only way some of Gatting's team-mates could comprehend what had happened was by trying to make a joke, with fellow batsman Graham Gooch saying: "If it had been a cheese roll it would never have got past him." Gatting, however, did come to appreciate what had happened following a delivery that set Warne on a path to becoming one of the Wisden Cricketers of the 20th Century along with Jack Hobbs, Donald Bradman, Garfield Sobers and Vivian Richards. "Without a doubt, he is number one," Gatting told Sky Sports on Friday. "The nice thing is he (Warne) always said, 'Thanks for that, mate, it started my career off'. All I could say was, 'It was a bit too good for me', like many others who would suffer the same fate." Suddenly, leg-spinners were back in fashion and every team wanted to have one, even if none could match Warne, whose influence was summed up in a tweet from Hampshire and England leg-spinner Mason Crane. "Shane Warne made me fall in love with the game as an eight-year-old and he has completely inspired me every day since," said Crane while Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan, the right-arm off spinner and record Test wicket taker with 800 victims, said Warne was "truly a genius in reviving the art of leg spin."

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Filed Under: on Saturday 5 March 2022

Warne 'made us believe', say IPL's Royals

Shane Warne was often called "the best captain Australia never had", and the Indian Premier League side he led to a title triumph in 2008 paid tribute to the late Australian bowler Saturday. The victory for the Rajasthan Royals in the inaugural edition of the world's most valuable cricket tournament not only lit up the Twenty20 contest but also turned several rookie Indian cricketers including Yusuf Pathan into popular names. The Royals have not won again in the 13 subsequent seasons and paid an emotional tribute to the spin legend who passed away on Friday aged 52 due to a suspected heart attack. "Shane Warne. The name stands for magic. Our first Royal, a man who made us believe that impossible is just a myth," the team said in a statement. "A leader who walked the walk, talked the talk, and turned underdogs into champions. A mentor who turned everything he touched into gold." The Royals added: "Warnie, you're forever going to be our captain, leader, Royal. Rest in peace, legend." Warne, who revived the art of leg spin and took 708 Test wickets in his glittering but controversial career, captained Australia state side Victoria and the English county Hampshire. He also led Australia's one-day side temporarily but reportedly lost out in the race to lead the national Test team to Ricky Ponting due to his off-field dramas. But his teammates at the Royals hailed Warne as a leader par excellence. "He was one of the skippers I always rated very highly. Very tough to consume this news. Condolences to his family and dear ones," tweeted Yusuf, who went on to win a 50-over World Cup with India after his IPL heroics. Shane Watson, who was part of Royals' title win, said, "Warnie, the impact you had on this great game and everyone around it is immeasurable. Thank you for being so bloody good to me. I am going to miss you so much. Rest In Peace SK." Warne's life has been the subject of a recent documentary -- titled "Shane" -- on a digital platform where he said: "I wouldn't have liked to play against me. I was nasty."

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