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All To Do With Nothing
By Tabrez Janjua for Stani Army in Pakistan Cricket
49 ViewsAs was likely, Younis Khan keeps his role as captain of Pakistan after the PCB rejected his resignation.
Ijaz Butt the Chairman was quoted cricinfo as saying “He is definitely our captain till the 2011 World Cup provided he remains fit”. So the only criteria for him keeping his captaincy is by remaining fit? I’m not sure if it’s as simple as that, or indeed I hope it is not as Pakistan fans the world over will be wondering, is he not going to be held accountable for results? So Younis can perform how he likes without getting removed for the next year and a half? I wish I had bosses like that.
Butt also said “His performance has been excellent”, hold on a minute, this is not even debatable, it is blatantly incorrect. It is the one thing that writers and fans in support of Younis since this saga have been keen to ignore – Younis’ own performances. The fact that Butt has just come out with this must bring a smile to Younis’ face and it quite clearly shows how Ijaz Butt is unconsidered with his choice of words – certainly no politician.
Anyway, I’m off to work to demand a non-performance related contract or I’ll hand in my resignation. Think I’ll succeed? (Clue: I do not work for the PCB).
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October 19th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Another board placed similar faith in their team’s captain despite a string of poor (captaincy related) performances, and he shall remain their captain until 2011 as well. He lost the Ashes again but went to win the Champions Trophy pretty convincingly. While in Ricky’s case, his ODI record is second to none, and they are more worried about losing Ricky the player, I believe the exact problem with Pakistan is that there is no real replacement skipper. Malik, MoYo, Afridi will probably never be considered as serious contenders again, and I don’t see the likes of Gul, Kamran Akmal or any of the others being given the honor either. Pakistan should seriously be looking to find someone and groom him irrespective of Younis’s performances, purely from a long term viewpoint.
October 19th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
I knew it will happen but if YK thinks that he has gotten away with it he should think twice. Now the whole world will be watching him and his team and analyzing their every move.
I think the damage has been done to YK’s reputation, life won’t be easy for Younis. Younis hasn’t given his statement yet, don’t be surprised if he chickens out of it knowing the kind of danger he is in now.
October 19th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Well I had a feeling YK would retain his captaincy. Like Wasim said above, people will be watching YK even more closely from now on and analyse his every move. But still I personally feel this is probably best for the Pakistan team which is on the rise.
October 20th, 2009 at 1:11 am
achettup
I see what you’re saying but Ponting’s a different animal. Along with the point you make yourself that he scores better than Younis, he also has this aura of a leader about him. Younis does not have this. You make a very good suggestion that we should begin to groom someone but even that pot of potential captain seems empty. It really is a country short on good strong leadership, cricket or non-cricket.
Wasim
Good point. Looking forward, people will be going through his performances as captain with a fine tooth comb (us two included!). I’m sure he could have done with the next two series being against the likes of West Indies, Bangladesh or Zimbabwe but New Zealand and Australia are going to be tough tests for him. Although, the way the PCB seem to be supporting him, they’ll probably go to some length to make excuses for any failures.
Rayden
Many people would agree with you that he is the best option we have right now and maybe this is something he himself is taking advantage of. But he was still wrong to quit in the manner he did. He could have made his demands without resigning, as you would in a normal meeting. Yet he decided to resign and then, in effect, blackmail the board.
October 20th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
@Stani – Yeah I do agree that YK resigning was quite dissapointing. I think a few of the Pak players are upset because of this and I read a report today that said some Pakistan players were not happy with YK.
I think it all started with that stupid politician. When will these politicians in the Sub-Continent start using even 1% of their brains for good.
October 20th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Rayden
I’m not surprised the players were upset as the whole issue could have been handled differently. Just imagine what the youngsters who are looking up to him are thinking.
These politicians just want to get into the lime light. I didn’t have a clue who Dusti was before this saga but now everyone knows. Unfortunately for him, everyone knows he’s an imbecile.
If the ICC ha the presence of mind of immediately rubbishing the newspaper report, why couldn’t our own people? We are notorious for bringing one another down.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:27 pm
I have now responded to ur email and changed the settings. Thanks for your help.
November 6th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
pakistan must be the only country in the world where ‘fans’ want to sack a world cup winning captain less than six months after one of the team’s greatest ever moments. say what you will about MYK, he led the team to a friggin’ world cup win and a champions trophy semi. that is good enough for any other country in the world.
how is it that guys like you, who are articulate and have a great sense of humor and insight into the game, waste so much time talking about the politics of cricket. there are barely any posts that are apolitical, dealing purely with what happened on the pitch. its always about conspiracies, and ethnic rivalries, and player intrigues etc. it sickens me for the most part.
the reason it makes sense to keep MYK as captain for the next world cup is because no team in the history of the game has won a tournament with a leadership change at the last minute. they have all been won by captains who were in charge for a significant period – lloyd, kapil, border, imran, ranatunga, waugh and ponting. so your point is rather puerile, based solely at taking pot shots at younis.
moreover, for the millionth time, MYK is one of the best captains we have had, purely for attacking intent. yes he makes mistakes, and no he’s no waugh, but come on, who do you want instead? there are no viable alternatives, yet you want to pick on someone who does deserve to be there. afridi is the only viable option, and i love the man, but he’s no thinker, he plays purely on instinct and if those fail him, he doesn’t have a lot of options left.
if you remember, this has been the most tumultous year in pakistani cricket history. he’s still held the team together, despite IPL bans, loss of hosting rights for the champion’s trophy and then world cup and then ALL ______ international cricket, and the ___________ terrorist attack.
those who claim that MYK is dictatorial and snubs the youngsters present the best argument against him, but in the end it is one that only goes so far. unlike imran, another dictator, younis is also quite happy to be chirping away. i am going out on a limb here, but a reason he could be cutting away at the wings of aamer and co. is because of what happens to young fast bowlers who get hyped beyond belief (see: Sharma, Ishant.)
…
wow – i didn’t think i was this __________ about the matter. i hope you guys can start focusing on the cricket, of which there is a conspicous absence in the recent posts, and get your minds off the politics. the writing here is really witty and enjoyable, its a shame to see it wasted on absolute ________.
November 6th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
karachikhatmal
Welcome to Stani Army.
With all due respect, Younis Khan contributed to very little in our recent success which included winning the t20 World Cup and reaching the Semis of the Champions Trophy. In terms of personal performance, it is clear to all that he failed.
As far as his captaincy is concerned, his was riddled with errors and short-sightedness. I disagree that our success mentioned above was because of his leadership. We had (in terms of those two tournaments) a very talented squad of players and he just happened to be captain at the time. Proof to this is that he himself treated the t20 World Cup as ‘fun’. I firmly believe had any of the other players had the ‘C’ by their name, we would have still been as successful if not more. Just like a good leader can fail (Vaughan, Dhoni), a bad leader can be successful. Sometimes, it has little to do with them. Look what happened to Younis in the Champions Trophy when he came up against a good captain (Vettori) with an average team.
I would love to talk about our cricket minus the politics. Yet the reality is that, at the moment, our cricket is entwined with politics. I live in England and English cricket has very little of this kind of thing. Had this been a blog about English cricket then I would be writing largely about what goes on the pitch and I would enjoy doing that. Here in England, most Politicians, captains and players know how to conduct themselves in regards to this.
I disagree that this blog is “always about conspiracies, and ethnic rivalries, and player intrigues etc”. May be the last couple of posts have lead you to this conclusion but it is one which is way off the mark and very unfair. Ethnic rivalries within our cricket sicken me and I have gone on other blogs saying as such. But, you cannot deny that they have and may still exist in our cricket. I have only touched upon this subject once on this blog as far as I can remember and even that was asking the question rather than stating something as fact. Added to that, it wasn’t in the main body of a post but as a caption to an image. That shows you how much I cared about it. Might I add to this, when there is no cricket then we have to talk about things related to our cricket. Unfortunately, the things related to our cricket are usually political etc.
As for the “last minute” leadership change, I’m not sure where you read that I was asking for that. There is plenty of time before the World Cup. So how you can attribute something to me that I did not say and then call it “puerile” is quite sad really.
As for your point on winning the World Cup (or any tournament for that matter), with a captain who has been in charge for a significant time, you contradict yourself. Early in your comment you used the fact that we won the t20 World Cup with Younis as ‘leader’ to back up your argument. You are now suggesting that new captains cannot win World Cups.
I have stated on other posts that I would not mind Afridi taking over as he has matured a lot. Yes, his instincts may get him into difficult situations but having the likes of Misbah and Malik around him would have been good. Seriously, if I was an opposition captain and saw Afridi leading, I would be very concerned.
To be honest, I haven’t seen Younis as dictatorial at all. He smiles, laughs and engages in too much bum-tapping to be as such. As for his snubbing of youngsters, this again is not something that has been obvious to me. The resting of Aamer against Australia in the Champions Trophy was a good call in my opinion and that’s all it was, a rest.
Younis is not a great leader. Younis is a lucky leader. This is not the same thing because luck runs out. Most of your criticism of me is aimed at me wanting to get rid of Younis. In fact, there was a time that I was happy for him as our captain. But, what I then disliked most was the way he kept quitting. This is something I don’t like in him or any leader especially for the reasons Younis went.
I understand your frustrations and I appreciate your critical views but please try to refrain from swearing as it leads debates into a certain direction where people just end up hurling insults at one another and get away from the point which is that we’re all trying to make one another see things from a different point of view, hence learn from one another. I don’t want people agreeing with me all the time but neither do I want them disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing. If you’ve been reading for a while and not commenting when you disagree, you should. Thanks
November 6th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
stani army:
thank you for the measured response – i am glad i wasn’t wrong about you guys being on the ball, and not like the nutjob trolls that inhabit the internet.
it’s clear that we both disagree on MYK’s captaincy. for one, i thought his “fun” comment was a great way at getting pressure of a team that had lost both its warm up matches. perhaps he just meant it like you say and i am reading too much into it, but that’s my take. also, i don’t think he’s lucky with a great squad – to be honest with you pakistan has always had at least one or two international level match winners in every team i have ever seen in the past two decades. however, that has translated into very few triumphs, so i wouldn’t put luck down as the only factor.
i am not saying MYK is a Brearly, but i do think he’s really good.
and the bigger point here is that i along with the majority of pakistanis felt genuine rage at dasti, and supported MYK’s resignation because it was such a ____ way to treat a nation’s heros. for me, it reminded me of how we refuse to even talk about our nation’s nobel prize winner, how we let major artists and poets die in starvation and misery, how we have let every hero of our country provide us great moments, before turning on them and viciously hacking them down. the fact that it was a two-bit politician who did that made me even angrier. i asee your point that the resignation saga is a bit annoying, but he was treated in a most shocking and shameful way.
cricket aside, i apologize for cursing, and thank you for not making this into a slinging match. i also find it very refreshing that your response was very civil and intelligent, even though i said several things you might have found offensive.
in the end i stick by my side, and i am sure you stick by yours. which is all good.
November 7th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
karachikhatmal
You’re right, there is a lot of testosterone filled frustration and anger out there on the blogs. It ends in nothing constructive.
I despise Dusti too. These people have no business in getting involved. How many other country’s headlines do you see on cricinfo involving politicians or ex-players coming out and being critical of the team? Only Pakistan. It’s outrageous.
I didn’t support Younis’ resignation because he held the stronger hand and could have finished Dusti off but he cried off like a child and came back only if his demands were met. Not the reaction of a strong leader but he has always been volatile in the past. I think, if we put it to him now that he could have raised the issue with Dusti with the government and PCB, have Dusti apologise, etc or have him sacked, rather than resign himself and bring more attention on himself, he would take it.
This bigging up our own then hacking them down is a favourite Pakistani past-time. It happens in our own homes so until that changes it’s never going to stop. I fear the day this blog is successful hahaha!!!
Of course we can agree to disagree. How boring would it be if we all had the same opinion? As for the civility in response, when you have a choice to make a friend of someone or an enemy, why not make them a friend? But of course, it is you, me and everyone who makes this blog what it is so let’s keep it how we want it.