View from Pakistan on India’s triumph

Kumar Sangakkara called the ‘heads’ and won the toss, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and India kept their ‘heads’ and won the World Cup!

Shahid Afridi didn’t requisition the powerplay in Mohali in the semifinal versus India when Pakistan required 82 runs to win in 62 deliveries. The Pakistan skipper didn’t play Shoaib Akhtar; he tried reinforcing failures by persisting with Abdul Razzaq, who turned out to be a liability and he didn’t really employ a ‘slip’ when MS Dhoni had freshly arrived and Saeed Ajmal was virtually unplayable with his ‘doosra’ being intractable. Afridi was never considered a strategic genius, a pedestrian with tactical implementation of plans.

Had Sangakkara been a Pakistani, he would have been summoned in the court to explain his unconvincing (to be polite) or distrustful (to be pretentious) performance. He dropped a catch, missed a clear stumping of Dhoni in the same over Virat Kohli had gotten out. India’s captain ran away with the World Cup with a mettlesome unbeaten 91. Sangakkara also missed running out Gautam Gambhir when on 30 (he eventually toppled Sri Lanka’s hopes with a perfect 97).

Sangakkara didn’t employ Muttiah Muralitharan when India required 24 runs off 22 balls. Instead, he turned to Nuwan Kulasekara who went all over the place. Regrettably, Lasith Malinga still had one over to spare when India routed Sri Lanka.

Even as Sangakkara batted and battled to 48 in 67 balls with five fours, the method that he used playing late and with the spin of Yuvraj Singh was surely the softest dismissal in Sri Lanka’s innings. Everything went wrong with Sangakkara and everything that went wrong with Sri Lanka actually was all what Sangakkara did.

Mahela Jayawardene’s was the best innings of the match. He picked the ball early and played very late. The masterly Jayawardene burgeoned at Mumbai scoring 103 in 88 deliveries in 159 minutes with 13 fours, all of them diligently executed. To his dismay second time in a row, he ended up on the losing team in the finals. He would fret and regret as his career is drawing to a close. Such was Jayawardene’s cracking form that India’s top bowler Zaheer Khan, who had conceded only 16 runs in 7 overs having picked two wickets, ended with 2-60 in 10 overs; 44 runs scored in his last three. Such was the power of Sri Lanka’s lower middle order.

India’s only hope to reach the target was the moisture and the overestimated ‘dew’ factor to minimise Muttiah Muralitharan and Suraj Randiv’s off-spin. It actually happened. India won the World Cup 2011. Despite criticism against his captaincy and batting form, Dhoni came into bat ahead of the Man of the Tournament Yuvraj Singh. Brave, bold, mettlesome and preemptive, he should be rated amongst the top few captains in the world — presumably a tier higher than Daniel Vettori, Ricky Ponting and Graeme Smith.

Team India deserved it. They had Garry Kirsten on the drawing board and they had MS Dhoni executing them shrewdly and diligent; they had the irresistible Yuvraj Singh (4 x man of the match awards). Yuvraj must be a proud man being in the India U-19 team that won the World Cup; he was part of India’s team that triumphed in South Africa winning the World Twenty20 and now he has been on the centre-stage; maturing in his role as India won the World Cup 2011.

The World Cup 2011 win wouldn’t just give 1.2 billion people of India opportunities to celebrate; the peppermint scented balloons, the fireworks, the monetary rewards or the champagne flavoured air around them; it will doubly strengthen India as cricket’s superpower and a market-place that attracts the West and everyone to go there and play international and league cricket. Well done BCCI! India’s emergence as the world champions should be a befitting tribute to Sachin Tendulkar, whom I call international cricket’s untainted brand ambassador.

As India pick momentum and their well-deserved champions’ status, Australia’s power and influence is waning. South Africa continue to ‘choke’ at crucial stages, despite having the most balanced team. They just couldn’t be elevated as a world power-house. Pakistan isn’t existing anymore despite their ascendancy to the semifinals. It’s quite clear they have become shrivelled wood because of unconditional alienation and also primarily because of self-infliction. West Indies are already dead. England marooned and almost standing on the fringe with a begging bowl.

The ICC is still trying to manifest its power. Now, the responsibility settles with India to manage to re-establish its position as leader of the international community, the second problem regarding the denigration of quality of cricket would remain. The responsibility to protect applies only in extreme cases. But how can pressure be applied in milder cases? A simple principle suggests itself: India ought to do much more on the constructive side. Constructive engagement does not violate the principle of sovereignty and, most important, the withdrawal of assistance such as to Pakistan (cancelling their full tour in January 2009 on political grounds) does not violate it, either.

The more India will do on the constructive side, the more options they would have in imposing balance so to ensure they aren’t left alone at the top; it actually happened to Australia as they forgot how the mighty could fall. India has to be cautious of the silent creep of impending doom. They needn’t be on the cusp and remain unaware and they would continue developing their product which they have been doing conscientiously and professionally, and they should pre-empt the five stages of decline whilst they are the champions of the world. The stages are as follows:
a)    Hubris of success
b)    Undisciplined pursuit of more
c)    Denial of risk and peril
d)    Grasping for salvation
e)    Capitulation to irrelevance or pulverisation

The last word on World Cup 2011 — I would like to give a different perspective to ICC’s role as a ‘regulatory body’ and not a ‘governing body’. This raises a question: What role should individual boards play in cricket’s economy? Market fundamentalists want to remove cricket governments from the economy altogether, and they hate bodies patronising the game outside their scope. The trouble is that market fundamentalists are right when they assert that boards are ill-suited (barring BCCI) to run cricket’s economy and that is even more true with countries like the West Indies and Pakistan, to some extent even Sri Lanka.

ICC’s steps to brand the three major competitions as their own, including the World Cup, has been notoriously ineffective and more generally, it is the shortcomings of the individual boards as economic factors that have led to the rise of market fundamentalism. Am I now advocating a return to individual boards’ intervention in the economy on the international scale?

I believe it is a mistake to pose this as an either/or question. There is a need for India now internationally, even if boards from other countries are ill-suited to run cricket’s global economy. The distortions and inefficiencies introduced by ICC regulations can be kept to a minimum by using incentives and penalties that work through the market mechanism.

— The writer is the Fellow, Royal College of Physicians (Edin), member of the Royal College of Physicians (UK), official historian of Pakistan cricket, former cricket analyst of the Pakistan team and the Pakistan Cricket Board and a former manager of the Pakistan team