Pakistan have a far greater target to achieve today than just winning – Sport

OF the important reasons for Paki­stan to win in Dubai, staying in the tournament isn’t the biggest. What matters more is that India do not progress to the final, that their act of sabotage beco­mes a footnote in the annals of international cricket.

Pakistan must win in Dubai both for the sake of Pakistan and for the sake of the integrity of a sport that makes a virtue of its integrity.

To suggest that this Pakistan team is equipped mentally and physically to overcome India is, however, something of a stretch. The tournament’s longest-serving holders and reigning champions find themselves underdogs in a city-state where they were once undisputed kings.

Pakistan’s one-day teams were in past times packed with match winners. That isn’t the case with this squad. The bowlers and batsmen who only recently looked set to dominate international cricket, take Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf and Naseem Shah, for example, young enough men all and half the team, are now playing like their best days are behind them.

That can’t be the case but we watch on perplexed at this never-ending stagnation. Somebody needs to flick the switch of dynamism back on and do it fast. This melancholy is deepened by the failure to find a suitable inheritor to Saqlain Mushtaq and Saeed Ajmal — even a fifty per cent great will do.

Abrar Ahmed shows glimpses but those glimpses must become a permanent vision. Dubai’s pummelled track will favour spin, and India have the advantage in that department as in every other. Your country needs you, Abrar.

It also needs captain Rizwan to win the toss and bat. If that happens a miracle in the desert might just be realised. Ironically, India’s political power play has given Pakistan the best chance of an upset. This India team against this Pakistan team on a flat track in Pakistan only delivers one result.

Much of Pakistan’s recent upturn was inspired by the unfettered genius of Saim Ayub. Without him and Pakistan’s other rapid scorer, Fakhar Zaman, Pakistan struggle to reach three hundred. But Dubai isn’t a three-hundred wicket. It is a stodgy track that makes a game of a modest 250.

And that is Pakistan’s zone — a contest of nurdling runs and occasional boundaries. Even then Pakistan will need to play out of their skins. But the conditions will give Pakistan a chance — and hope.

International cricket is India First. The only thing that India falls short in is international titles, and it must be denied this one too. The fact that one country can sabotage an international tournament for political reasons is against the very ethos of sport and the code of the ICC, cricket’s ruling body.

It bears repeating that it is important for India to lose. We all know that there is something rotten in the state of international cricket — and we know what it is.

India’s Trumpian rule of international cricket does not act in the best interests of the sport. The schedule is crafted for India’s convenience. Any world tournament is designed to suit India. The money goes to India. The power lies with India. Friends are favoured, enemies humiliated.

Yet, India gets away with it because India is the ICC. India’s appeasers, the other cricket boards, must hang their heads in shame. India will dominate for now and perhaps many years to come, but eventually cricket will lose and the sport that we love will be destroyed.

This is why if you support cricket, when the formidable cricketers of India take the field against the less-than-formidable cricketers of Pakistan in the mythical venue of Dubai, you also support Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2025