Cricket victory

THE series win against New Zealand and the accompanied naming of the skipper for the upcoming World Cup competition has prompted more than our usual share of excitement — and sighs. Appreciation is what our cricketers need when the game's premier tournament is fast approaching, and criticism is surely something the team could have done without at this stage, and that could have been avoided on the part of the cricket bosses. The Pakistan Cricket Board has wasted crucial time in naming a captain for the World Cup thereby denying the team the benefit of experiments it should have carried out during the New Zealand tour. In fact, it is such situations the national cricket team routinely runs into which form the basis of the metaphor commentators often use to describe the country's general state of affairs. Disillusioned with the manner in which the affairs of cricket are run in the country, it is a freak victory in the World Cup that Pakistanis are cheering for. Thursday's victory that sealed the One-Day International series against New Zealand is by no means a small achievement. The national side has won an ODI series after a while, and the fact that this came on the heels of a 1-0 result in favour of Pakistan in the Tests makes it quite a successful tour. However, the delay in the naming of the team's captain meant that the man in charge of the side was on trial to prove his leadership. In the given circumstances, he could have hardly been thinking of innovating and rehearsing for the World Cup. From that perspective, this was the major difference between the two teams: while New Zealand was trying out various drills in the run-up to the big event, Pakistan missed the opportunity due to the short-sightedness of the PCB.