Shadab Khan during Pakistan’s Asia Cup final against Sri Lanka. Photo courtesy Twitter
Pakistan lost its Asia Cup Cricket final match in Dubai despite winning the toss and getting Sri Lanka to bat first, with an expectation to end in victory for Pakistan. It even got Sri Lanka out for 170 for six and everybody thought Pakistan would win. But it still lost. Why? Because it was found wanting in all three departments of the game: fielding, bowling and batting. Sri Lanka scored 170 despite bad fielding by Pakistan, which was a total the national team was supposed to achieve easily. Unfortunately, Pakistani batting was shockingly poor in the face of Sri Lankan bowling which, for the first time, looked daunting despite its youthful and untested bowlers. Pakistan collapsed in 147. And it always looked like it wouldn’t complete its 20 overs.
It is time to ponder the state of the Pakistan team. A whole batch of players in it had not been “broken in”—like Iftikhar Ahmed, Muhammad Nawaz, Khushdil Shah, Asif Ali—or were simply “mis-selected,” i.e. not good enough to face even a young Sri Lankan side with players not yet known for great feats in international cricket. Dhananjaya scored 28; Rajapaksa was allowed to score a match-winning 71; and Hasrananga 36, while Pakistani fielders made repeated mistakes, especially fouling up catches, foremost guilty being top-fielder Shadab Khan; even normally capable Fakhar Zaman looked like an alien descended on to the field without a clue as to how to field a ball let alone hold catches. For the last few matches in the Asia Cup he had collapsed in his batting and was regularly getting out without scoring the kind of runs he is expected to score.
Batting was a disaster. Batting second was supposed to be the key to success in the Cup but Pakistan failed even to benefit from winning the toss. The collapse of the captain, Babar Azam, can’t be explained. He never looked like playing normally and could score only five off 22 balls, being followed by Fakhar Zaman with a duck. Zaman just had his wicket shattered by young Lyanagamage, clueless about how to tackle the ball. And this was not his only a bad-luck moment at the Cup. He has not looked like playing or fielding normally, as if he had reached some kind of saturation point. It was shocking to see batsmen Muhammad Nawaz (6), Khushdil Shah (2), Asif Ali (0), and Shadab Khan (8) walking off as if they were playing a big match for the first time. The Sri Lankans were young and unlike any Sri Lanka in the past gifted and tireless in the field. Some of the catches they held were a treat of the tour. The Sri Lankan fast bowler Madushanka was just breaking into world cricket and yet he was simply unplayable because of his speed. It must, however, be said that the island cricketers looked to be emerging as the champions of South Asia because of their youth and talent. The nature of Pakistani defeat conjured an opposite view of its future. Appropriately, a flood-endangered Pakistan observed its founder Quaid-e-Azam’s death anniversary on the same day.