Pakistan

Danish Kaneria outwits Mitchell Johnson

One thing we don’t like about modern cricket is the long batting order. We want to see the best batsmen against the best bowlers and then we want the lower order to just fold so that we can get on to the next innings.

In truth, these long batting orders are no such thing. Test pitches are more forgiving these days, so mediocre batsmen can score well. Yesterday, Mitchell Johnson – a reasonable batsman with a Test hundred – was asked a couple of questions by the man who sounds like he should be a Nordic aviary, Danish Kaneria. Mitchell Johnson did not have the answers.

If it were a French test, Johnson would have said ‘boeuf?’ in the vain hope that might have made sense. It didn’t.

A couple of wide deliveries were left alone. Johnson looked like he knew what he was doing, but they were wide enough he could leave them without needing to know which they were spinning.

A straighter ball then had to be played at because if it were a leg break, it would have hit the stumps. Was it a leg break? No, it was a googly. Johnson’s defensive push missed it by about a foot. “Boeuf?”

Next ball was fractionally wider and maybe a bit fuller. Is it the googly again, Mitchell? Kaneria’s leg break splattered the stumps.

Shahid Afridi might smash a hundred

With Shahid Afridi, it’s not about what will happen; it’s about what might happen. Pakistan might need 20 an over, but if Shahid Afridi has got a bat in his hand, that’s not beyond the realms of possibility.

In order to maintain this feeling, Afridi occasionally needs to do something to support it. He doesn’t need to do it very often – just often enough that ludicrous events still seem faintly plausible. Today, in a relatively low-scoring game, he hit a hundred off 68 balls. He can return to his usual airy swishing for a good few innings now.

We once saw a hilarious joke in Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps. We watched at least two full episodes on the strength of that. We’ll never get that time back again. Shahid Afridi has a greater success rate than Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps and can keep you interested as a consequence.

You probably knew that.

Overturning Shoaib Malik’s ban was the best decision

We’re using ‘best’ to mean ‘funniest’ there. Of all the player punishments to have been reversed by the PCB in the last few weeks, the reasoning behind the Shoaib Malik decision was the best.

Lest we forget, Shoaib Malik was banned for a year for being a negative influence on the Pakistan team.

Apparently, since then:

“He has improved his behaviour and attitude.”

Shoaib Malik has proved that he is no longer a malign influence on his team mates and he’s somehow managed to achieve this while banned.

Mohammad Yousuf’s “retirement”

If you want to know how to retire from cricket. Look to Pakistan. Look to Mohammad Yousuf, who’s executed a textbook Pakistan cricket retirement.

“This is my retirement. I have retired from international cricket.”

He then added:

“For now, this is it. For now this is my retirement.”

That’s how to do it. That’s how to retire.

Many great players bow out to a chorus of wailing from the fans. No-one likes emotion. Far better to retire in equivocal fashion, leaving the door open for a possible or probable return.

Either Mohammad Yousuf comes back (hurrah!) or one day in a couple of years time, we notice that he hasn’t actually come back, in which case we’ll feel all right about it because we’ve pretty much forgotten about him.

Yousuf and Younus AREN’T banned for life

Even by Pakistan’s standards this must be some kind of a record.

After claiming to be on very firm ground with the punishments they’d doled out, the Pakistan Cricket Board has now said that actually what may have sounded like a life ban was no such thing. Mohammad Yousuf and Younus Khan are actually eligible for selection “as and when the PCB deems appropriate” – which will hopefully be in time for their next match.

Maybe they never meant it. Maybe they were misunderstood. Maybe their new coach, Waqar Younis, has thrown a fit. Maybe it’s all a big post-modern joke at the media’s expense.

Whatever it is, Rana Naved still doesn’t know what he’s done to get banned for a year.

Life bans for Mohammad Yousuf and Younus Khan?

Banning Pakistan cricketers for in-fighting? It’s like firing a computer programmer for being interested in Star Wars. Some things just come with the territory.

With Mohammad Yousuf and Younus Khan banned for life, there’s every chance that one of them might not play in the Test series against Australia this summer, which would be disappointing because they’re far and away Pakistan’s best batsmen. The wording is that they ‘should not be part of the national team’ though, which almost implies that they could be – unless it’s a would/will type thing again.

It seems to be a massive overreaction, but the feeling in Pakistan is that it is drawing a line under player indiscipline. It’s basically saying to the players:

“You’re all being complete dicks almost all of the time. You have to stop. This is what acting like a dick gets you, so don’t do it. If everyone’s being a dick all the time, that’s more damaging than losing all our senior players. That’s how serious being a dick is. Okay? Now belt up and play some cricket.”

That’s how we’re reading it anyway.

What is it like inside Shahid Afridi’s head?

Very few cricketers combine stellar brilliance with all three major types of retardation.

Update: We’ve done some slightly lengthier writing on this subject for The Wisden Cricketer.

Mohammad Yousuf given the slow boot

Despite the fact that there are still a few matches to go on the tour of Australia, Pakistan Cricket Board chairman, Ijaz Butt, has already confirmed that Mohammad Yousuf will not be captain when it finishes.

Having to do a job when you already know you’re being made redundant is bloody awful. It feels like digging your own grave. Unlike when it happened to us though, Yousuf probably won’t find that his job is being outsourced. You can’t really outsource the Pakistan captaincy.

He won’t suffer another insult which we endured either: having to shave because you’ve got to go to job interviews.

Hopefully the PCB will be generous in turning a blind eye if he steals a load of carboard boxes and batteries as well. You’ve got to get something out of the last few weeks when you’re basically just going through the motions.

Umar Akmal won’t play if Kamran Akmal doesn’t play

Just when you think that international cricket can’t get any more like the playground, it does. It’s only a matter of time before someone breaks a window with a shit shot on goal and everyone gets bollocked for it.

There are mutterings that Umar Akmal isn’t really injured, that it’s actually a protest that his brother, Kamran, might be dropped from the Pakistan team.

Umar seems to think that Kamran being dropped is the problem. It’s not. The fact that Kamran has a pair of toasted sandwich makers instead of hands is the problem.

Mohammad Sami – good bowling speed, like usual, but wickets too

Never judge a pitch until both teams have batted, but if a side’s bowled out for 127 and they’ve chosen to bat, you can take a good long look at the captain and maybe laugh at him a bit.

Ricky Ponting should have been wary of Mohammad Asif, who’s probably the best bowler in the world at the minute, but he wouldn’t have worried about Mohammad Sami one bit.

Surely no frontline bowler in history has played so many Tests and yet had such a shit record. In his 33 Tests prior to this match, Sami had taken 81 wickets at 51.37. To put that in perspective, Ponting can consider himself the superior bowler with an average of 48.40.

That’s not the whole story though. Sami was the Next Big Thing once upon a time and has often hinted at being quite a bowler. He can bowl at 95mph and has both a Test and one-day international hat trick. Surely it’s some kind of sorcery to cram a hat trick into a Test bowling record that’s that gash?