Pakistan’s lack of support to promising batsmen damaging hopes of future success

Reflecting on Pakistan's series defeat to Bangladesh, Osman Samiuddin explains why the lack of support to Pakistan's up-and-coming batsmen is key to the team's lack of recent success.

Saad Nasim has shown promise during the series defeat in Bangladesh, but will he be around this time next year? A M Ahad / AP Photo

It is tempting to think that Pakistan could have lost as they did to any side and the words and emotions of Javed Miandad and Imran Khan would have been exactly the same.

Miandad said their series loss to Bangladesh was the lowest point in Pakistan’s cricket history, a category in which there is enviable competition. Imran thought it unimaginable, which perhaps says more of the limits of his imagination than anything else.

The predictability of their reactions and post-World Cup fatigue should not, however, mask the momentousness of this result, more joyously for the hosts. This current Bangladesh side, immeasurably emboldened by two genuine fast bowlers, has a swag about it that makes it unrecognisable from their predecessors.

They have not only clean swept Pakistan, they have done it precisely as they meant to, that much was clear from their restrained celebrations on winning each match. They expected to win and they did.

In that light, the result itself is not as shocking as the nature of it. These were thumpings of a kind Australia and South Africa used to hand out to Pakistan. Comprehensively, by any measure, Bangladesh were not just better but vastly superior.

It should mark a point in Pakistan’s fortunes. Whether or not it is the lowest, or the most unimaginable is not even important. What it should do is bring to a head an acute modern problem.

Here is the problem. Sami Aslam debuted in Wednesday’s eight-wicket loss in Dhaka. He looked exactly as good as observers expected, forged on assessments from an immensely successful Under 19 career.

Based on the smart 45 he scored there should not be too much hesitation in predicting him a bright future. Except, of course, not. Because if there is one thing young, impressive Pakistani batsmen have not done, it is build on impressive starts, both at the micro level of a match and at the macro level of a career.

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Saad Nasim and Mohammad Rizwan also had an innings each in the series which marked them out as players to persist with. Yet this time next year will they be around? That is not pessimistic as much as it is rhetorical.

Run through the batsmen Pakistan have debuted recently. Sharjeel Khan’s debut 61 in December 2013, in which his attack on Lasith Malinga stood out, sparkled so bright it was impossible not to be taken in. In 10 innings thereafter he failed to reach double figures five times and never ventured beyond 26.

Sohaib Maqsood made three fifties and a 42 in his first six ODI innings and did it with such studied indifference it really did feel like the spirit of a young, thin Inzamam-ul-Haq had reappeared. Since then he has two fifties in 18 innings, and the burden of a failed World Cup to go with it.

The bulk of the innings Haris Sohail has played, meanwhile, say, in polite rather than forceful tones, that he is a prospect. He could be a handy, versatile anchor in that middle order. Yet despite 13 20-plus scores in his 19 ODI innings, he has only five fifties and has not gone beyond 85.

Other than with incredible frustration, it is difficult to know how to judge his last four innings: 41, 51, 44, 52. Accomplished each one, but ultimately insignificant.

It is the same pattern, over and over again. An early show of promise and then, suddenly, inevitably, a quick fade. Seamlessly the names of Nasir Jamshed, Ahmed Shehzad and Umar Akmal can be added here.

It cannot be that these were one-offs, a detritus of amateur-era sports whereby, every now and again, a lesser-equipped somehow makes it through, shines briefly and then slips back.

Professional sport, even in a country where the sporting infrastructure is as wobbly as Pakistan’s, does not allow for such things anymore. If you have made an impression early in your international career, chances are you are good enough. Further, in most cases these players have scored heavily either at domestic, or age-group levels.

Is it an internal fault, within Pakistan, that prevents them from recovering and progressing once they hit the inevitable bump all young athletes do?

Almost certainly. Forget for a moment the standard and state of domestic cricket. Look at the environment in which, say, a young Akmal is operating. When David Warner hit a rough patch soon after his blistering debut, he had Greg Chappell and a batting mentor in Trent Woodhill to give him the tough love and nurturing he needed. His game since has not only blossomed, it has broadened.

Around the world are countless examples. A young Alastair Cook had Graham Gooch to fall back upon; India’s new generation had selfless champions of the previous generation. A young Pakistani batsman, on the other hand, operates alone, in a vacuum of mistrust and insecurity.

Pakistan is not incapable of creating helpful environments. The story of their fast bowling is built on it. But the peculiarly difficult nature of their greatest batsmen such as Miandad, Mohammad Yousuf, Zaheer Abbas and too many others precludes them from the selflessness and mentoring young batsmen need.

The other, not inconsiderable factor, is the sense of exclusion Pakistan’s players operate under. This goes beyond just the Indian Prenier League, from which they remain forcibly absent, though that cannot be downplayed. Cricket is undergoing an evolutionary leap in batting and much of its innovatory heat emanates from the IPL.

But so much about the cricket Pakistan play speaks of a bigger exclusion. Every match, for instance, their young batsmen play seems to be some low-key affair against Sri Lanka, usually in a half-empty stadium, sidelined under the lesser gaze of a lesser broadcaster.

Very rarely do they find themselves on one of the world’s bigger stages. Virat Kohli has played 15 of his 33 Tests in the bigger arenas of Australia, England and South Africa, arenas that can ruthlessly expose but also afford opportunities to learn far more about themselves and their games. Azhar Ali has played nine of his 39 in England and South Africa and has yet to play in Australia.

When they do then get on a big stage, as at the recent World Cup, it is no surprise they suffer stage fright. The key to performing on the big stage is for it to not feel so big.

These, in any case, are some of the problems. The solutions are as obvious, just not so easily reached.

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