YOU win some and you lose some – but you don’t lose these. You don’t lose to the USA, a team of rookies, in an international cricket match. You don’t lose with such a brainless, brittle, blundering performance. You don’t lose like an amateurish bunch of schoolboy cricketers. The disaster in Dallas is the biggest mystery in that city since “Who shot J.R.?”

Pakistan’s momentous defeat to the USA in their opening match of the T20 World Cup joins the legendary embarrassments of Bangladesh in 1999 and Ireland in 2007. The first did a number on the reputations of some of Pakistan’s greatest cricketers, the celebrated team of the 1990s, and spawned the Qayyum inquiry. The second ended with Bob Woolmer’s mysterious death and a criminal investigation involving Pakistan. We can only hope that the repercussions of this mind boggling result are nothing so serious.

The one saving grace is that, credit where it’s due, USA are a decent team. Out of nowhere, they bowl, bat, and field like experienced internationals. Their mob of immigrant cricketers are professional, possess quality, and hold their nerve when it’s needed. They didn’t shrivel in the face of Pakistan’s cricket history. On the contrary, they rose to the occasion in the midday heat.

But whether they should be beating Pakistan is a different matter altogether. The collective experience of Pakistan’s players is immense. In recent memory, with a similar team, they had been ranked the world’s best in T20 cricket. They were losing finalists in 2022, even a little unlucky to lose.

The stark reality, however, is that Pakistan have spent the past two years thinking they are one of the world’s top teams when in fact their performances have been variations on the theme of rubbish. The teenage dead-headed cult of Babar has restored a limited captain to the unlimited power of captaincy. The chief selector is wholly unqualified for the role, and has bestowed upon a limited Baber a limited squad. The coach is new and must somehow fix this mess. Gary Kirsten was a gritty, effective opening Test batsman. He is no miracle worker in T20 cricket.

On top of this hierarchy of ineptitude and shifting roles sits the chairman of the board, who, as often seems the way, has no pedigree in cricket and an unclear track record in successfully running an organisation of the PCB’s nature. Everybody thinks they understand cricket because they watch cricket, but that doesn’t qualify them to run a national cricket enterprise. What qualifies people in Pakistan is being a pal of the President or the Prime Minister — and there sits the rot at the heart of Pakistan itself.

It is important to be reminded of these matters when the Pakistan cricket team produces something truly diabolical, because of the knee-jerk reaction to hurl all our venom at what we see on the field of play. The players and their performances are only the end product of an absolute system failure — a system failure that it takes particularly exceptional individual players and coaches to overcome.

The match itself was also a recital of Pakistan’s cricketing failings. Wickets were lost in clusters, and the batsmen seemed unable to calibrate the ambition to attack with the need to rebuild. The middle and late order, Shadab Khan aside, flopped. Babar was in the runs without taking hold of the innings and making a decisive intervention, as the great batsmen do more often than Pakistan’s leader does. Azam Khan is a broken man, and he needs to be taken out of the firing line for his own good. None of the batsmen seem to be willing to be the one that delivers, and their shot making is inconsistent.

The bowlers generally lack penetration. The spin bowling relies on Shadab, whose bowling doesn’t change games. Once upon a time you might have expected such an array of Pakistani fast bowling to blow away a minnow, but the pace attack is either too predictable — all good length from Naseem Shah or all yorkers from Haris Rauf — or unable to execute its plans.

There must be at least one million people in Pakistan, possibly even a hundred million, who can accurately bowl six yorkers in a row. But Rauf isn’t one of these. The sight of Rauf’s attempted yorker ending up as a low full toss, with Rauf failing over as he watches the delivery sail over his head on the way to the boundary, is a stake through every fan’s heart. Man, just get it right, you’re paid to do this.

Yet, Rauf remains an asset. When that yorker lands, it can be devastating. And this where the conspiracy of captaincy and inconsistency plays its ugly hand. Even after stumbling through the game, the match was theirs. Pakistan just needed to avoid a boundary off the last ball. Rauf steamed in searching for his sixth yorker. Inevitably the low full toss flew towards long on.

Of course, the wisdom of Babar didn’t allow for a long on fielder — the most basic of strategies when your fast man is bowling yorkers. No, for some reason, Captain Babar’s fielder was at mid-on, utterly helpless. Rauf was distraught, Babar was furious, waving his hands like an angry traffic cop. The anger would have been better self directed.

At that point you knew Pakistan would lose the Super Over. The captain had lost it. The coach looked in shock. You knew they would lose when Mohammad Amir bowled without an inch of control, and the fielders fumbled and overthrew; when even Rizwan lost his mind.

You knew for certain when the batsmen took an age to appear for the super over, and when two of the go-to men were the tried and failed couple of Ifthikar Ahmed and Shadab. You knew when Fakhar Zaman didn’t take strike. You knew when Pakistan’s captain didn’t bat in the Super Over to lead from the front. You knew, then, that Pakistan had mentally collapsed.

Pakistan’s loss to the USA wasn’t just a humiliation. It was the culmination of bad planning, bad selection, and bad execution of cricketing basics for at least two years. The only way is up, they say, but Pakistan have a habit of plumbing new depths. The destroyed team of Babar Azam and Wahab Riaz must rouse itself to beat favourites India to have any serious hope of second round qualification. It would be a win against the odds — and beyond any reasonable hope.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2024