Six and Out - Some Serious Cricket

What the heck happened to Pakistan?

by SixandOut on October 11th, 2006

Ever since Ovalgate, Pakistan has spiralled down an unstoppable slope of farce. What a slope of farce is, is anyone’s guess, but nevertheless, you can’t go a day at the moment without some sort of story about the Pakistani’s. And it’s usually deleterious, and from what I can tell, it’s largely self-induced.

So here’s a quick recap:

• Darrell Hair accuses Pakistan of ball-tampering and after Pakistan refuse to take to the field after tea, the match is forfeited
• Eventually, Inzamam is cleared of ball-tampering, but is found to have brought the game in to disrepute and is banned for 4 ODI’s
• Younis Khan is appointed captain of Pakistan for the ICC Champions Trophy
• Younis Khan resigns as captain of Pakistan for the ICC Champions Trophy
• Chairman of the PCB, Sharyrar Khan, resigns
• Younis Khan is reappointed captain of Pakistan for the ICC Champions Trophy
• Coach Mushtaq Ahmed is sacked
• Logistical cockup means that should Pakistan reach the final of the Champions Trophy, Inzy wouldn’t be able to play
• Abbas Zaidi quits the PCB
• Pakistan reject an application for compensation from England for Ovalgate

I think I’ve got everything there, but I could be wrong. It’s been hard to keep up with. But really, it’s just been one thing after another. It seems pretty obvious that if you find yourself at the centre of a massive controversy, then the first thing you try to do is damage limitation, that is, make damned sure that nothing else newsworthy comes about. Not in Pakistan’s case, bad news has merely escalated.

It will be interesting to see te effect these constant distractions will have on the performance of the team in the Champions Trophy. At least if they crash out in the Group stages they’ll have a pretty good excuse.

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