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November 28, 2007

Shahid Afridi: "[Shoaib] Malik needs to be confident ahead of the second Test and must push the players to do better"

Pakistan allrounder Shahid Afridi wants Shoaib Malik, the captain, to be "tough and demanding" to get the most out of his players in order for Pakistan to fight back in the Test series. Pakistan are trailing 0-1 in the three-Test series after India won by six wickets in Delhi.

"If a player is not performing to his optimum level, the captain must be tough and demand more. I think our team was in a position to win the first Test," Afridi, who was omitted from the Test squad after the one-day series defeat, told PTI.

"Experience counts for a lot and [Anil] Kumble led their team well and intelligently. Malik can also do a similar job but he needs to be confident ahead of the second Test and must push the players to do better."

However, Moin Khan, a former Pakistan captain and wicketkeeper, said that Malik could not be blamed because captaincy happened too suddenly for him.

"He [Malik] doesn't have the captaincy experience," Moin told Cricinfo. "He just captained his regional side for some Twenty20 games and suddenly he becomes the captain of the national side. It is going to take time for him to develop. The problem lies with the board. They should have groomed a captain." Moin felt the Test captaincy could have been given to Mohammad Yousuf while Malik could have continued to be the captain in the ODIs.

Afridi said that Pakistan were in a strong position when they gained the lead on the third evening in Delhi. However, on the fourth morning, they lost their last five wickets for 35 runs and set India a target of only 203. Afridi said that the batsmen needed to apply themselves more.

"The batting didn't go all the way after a good start. I have no doubt if we had got another 80 to 100 runs, we could have won this Test match," Afridi said. "It was disappointing to lose out in the end. I am sure the rest of the team will be eager to make a comeback in the second Test in Kolkata. But the other bowlers also need to give more support to Shoaib Akhtar."

Shoaib, who took six wickets including all four to fall in India's second innings, received little support from the other bowlers. Danish Kaneria, the legspinner, was especially disappointing, going for 0 for 50 in the final innings.

"They must have tried hard but the results are important," Afridi said. "I was surprised that Kaneria didn't take more wickets on this pitch. I think he was not as effective because of his shortened run-up. He will get more bite into his bowling if he goes back to his old bowling action which allows him more flight and turn."

"It is just a matter of getting back the confidence. In 2005, when we were down in the series, we only came back in the final Test in Bangalore because we believed we could do it and Inzamam [ul-Haq] kept telling us we were close to squaring the series. But the batting must click big time like it did in Bangalore."

Pakistan in India, 2007-08

 

The players have been provided heavy security cover ahead of the second Test in Kolkata

If injury concerns ruled all conversation on the field, it was security that created a buzz off it in Kolkata ahead of the second Test between India and Pakistan. The Taj Bengal hotel, the standard port of call for international teams in the city, was turned into a virtual fortress with police personnel making entry and exit almost impossible if you were not directly involved with the team.

Forty-eight hours before the game's scheduled start, nearly 5000 city policemen were involved in the protection of the two teams, a number that will increase manifold by Friday morning. In the wake of the e-mail threat directed at the Pakistan players, local authorities are taking no chances.

"It is the role of the Board of Control for Cricket in India to manage the security arrangements for our players," Ehsan Malik, the Pakistan media manager, said. "For the players and the team management it is their job to focus on the cricket."

It is inconceivable, though, that the players are not affected by the security blanket surrounding them. At the hotel electronic bag scanners check every article of luggage entering the premises. The two floors where the teams are housed have been fitted with door-frame metal detectors at the beginning and end of each corridor and other security measures include hand-held metal detectors, a round-the-clock bomb detection and defusal squad and patrolling by sniffer dogs. At the stadium, a police source confirmed, at least 40 closed-circuit cameras will installed before the start of the Test.

All player movement to and from the hotel has to be cleared by the police, who have appointed designated officers to look after each player and accompany them on any trips outside. Yuvraj Singh and Sourav Ganguly had to stop off at a hotel close to the ground to attend a product endorsement, and this was done with full police escort on the roads and in the hotel they visited. It is not clear what the situation will be if a player wants to leave the team hotel on his own, but it is learned that the players have been strongly advised against doing so.

The additional security arrangements have already caused problems for non-team members scheduled to stay at the Taj Bengal. Some team sponsors, who were booked to stay at the hotel for the duration of the Test, have been forced to find alternate accommodation, not an easy task to achieve in the last minute with a medical conference making available hotel rooms scarce in Kolkata.

Also, for the first time in recent memory, match officials have been moved out of the team hotel. It is customary practice for the umpires and match referee to stay with the teams, but this time the officials are being put up at the ITC Sonar Bangla hotel, a good distance away from the Eden Gardens. Do the security personnel think the match referee or one of the umpires poses a threat to the players?

That surely, is not the case, but when you speak to anyone involved with security, the common refrain is, "we're not taking any chances."

Shoaib Malik will be hoping his troublesome ankle heals in time for the Kolkata Test © AFP

It's hard to remember when last a team was in such disarray before a must-win Test match. Pakistan's injury problems began as a bothersome aside but have now taken centre stage as they have only three fit bowlers going into the Kolkata Test. India, on the other hand, are sitting pretty, with their one doubtful starter, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, having recovered fully from a twisted ankle. An SOS has been sent to the Pakistan selectors, but with flight connectivity to Kolkata not being the greatest, it will be a challenge to get someone in with enough time to spare to take the field in the second Test.

More than a few experts have been surprised by the rise of Sohail Tanvir, who with his unorthodox action, delivering not quite off the wrong foot but releasing the ball before his leading foot lands, was a novelty in Twenty20 cricket before sneaking into the one-day team. Now, with one Test under his belt, he is likely to lead Pakistan's pace attack, with Umar Gul out, and Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Sami struggling with chest infections and illness. Tanvir has Danish Kaneria and Abdur Rehman as his only fully fit bowling partners.

Although India must be secretly boosted by Pakistan's troubles, Anil Kumble insists his team are not thinking of the composition of the opposition side. "Ideally we should look to control what we can control. The team is raring to go and that is a good sign," said Kumble a day before the game.

It's not a bad approach to take, for Pakistan could just be at their most dangerous if Shoaib or Sami, or both, are somehow fit when play begins on Friday, though that seems desperately unlikely. Pakistan now truly have nothing to lose and everything to gain, and this will mean that any relief they get is a positive and should boost them going into the game.

India, meanwhile, have a choice of their own to make, with a thought to bring in a third spinner in Murali Kartik. However, in order to do so, they will have to do some significant juggling, either using one of the middle-order batsmen as an opener and leaving out Dinesh Karthik, who has scored heavily in Tests this year, barring the last game, or play just one fast bowler and use Sourav Ganguly as a medium-pace option. Both seem unlikely, though Ganguly did play a significant part with the ball in the first Test.

"I think Sourav has done well in the last game, and I don't think he should change whatever he has been doing to satisfy your definition of success," said Kumble when asked about Ganguly's effort with the ball. "I think his role in the team, as a bowler it was very important for us in Kotla. I am sure he will get a bit of bowl here as well. I hope he will be more successful here than in Kotla."

Either way, the decision on the playing XI will be made late in the day, after consultation with Dilip Vengsarkar, who is expected to arrive in Kolkata on the eve of the match. The only thing that could tempt the Indians into playing three spinners is the pitch, but it's tough to say if there are strong enough indications that the pitch will crumble. The curator insists it will begin to take turn on the third day, but such predictions are dangerous.

"It seems to be a decent wicket and it should play well," said Kumble. "But it is for us to take the momentum from Kotla and ensure that we turn the screws on early. We need to bat to our potential, and we should not let them off the hook as we had done in the first innings in Kotla."

What makes it harder to believe that the Indians will play three spinners is the fact that Harbhajan Singh was quite significantly under-bowled in the first Test. He bowled 15 overs in the first innings and 17 in the second, and on both occasions even Zaheer Khan had sent down more overs.

It's too early to judge Kumble the captain, after just one Test match, but already he appears to be a man in control of his team. He's been playing the game at the highest level for 17 long years and there's little he has not experienced first hand.

Malik, however, barely portrays the same picture. Again it would be unfair to slate Malik without inside knowledge of how he interacted with his team, but on the field he has not looked a leader. He has looked like just one of the boys, and with the results not coming, and the runs also reducing to a trickle, the pressure is fairly and squarely on Malik. One thing's pretty clear, though, if he gets through these testing times unscathed, things are only going to get easier for him.

Teams
India (probable): 1 Dinesh Karthik, 2 Wasim Jaffer, 3 Rahul Dravid, 4 Sachin Tendulkar, 5 Sourav Ganguly, 6 VVS Laxman, 7 Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), 8 Anil Kumble (capt), 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Zaheer Khan, 11 Munaf Patel.

Pakistan (from): Salman Butt, Yasir Hameed, Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf, Shoaib Malik (capt), Misbah-ul-Haq, Kamran Akmal (wk), Sohail Tanvir, Mohammad Sami, Shoaib Akhtar, Danish Kaneria, Abdur Rehman, Yasir Arafat, Faisal Iqbal.