There’s a case for calling Pakistan the Goran Ivanisevic of team sports. Goran, who at 29 parlayed a wild card [more like a sympathy card, really] into his first and only Wimbledon title in 2001, had however a third variant besides the good and the bad: the persona he dubbed ‘Emergency Goran’ [a choice collection of Goran quotes here]. It is here that the Pakistan team has differed from from the maverick Croat in recent times: the team has no ’emergency’ version capable of pulling cricketing aces out of its pack. Or maybe Pakistan does have a third version: the ‘rubbish’ one Kamran Abbasi speaks of here.
There was a brief spell of play when I — and what seemed like the half of Pakistan that had packed the stands at The Oval — thought the side would make England pay for its crap play in the tournament opener, and for what Andrew Miller characterized as its obsession with the Ashes.
Shoaib Mallik had taken a good catch to get rid of Ravi Bopara; Kevin Pietersen, who sat out the first game citing a dodgy Achilles tendon, had repeatedly thumped the ball hard only to find himself denied by excellent fielding at shortish cover and mid on, and Pakistan seemed to have found the wind beneath its wings. England’s hope had limped — metaphorically, though the Achilles seemed just fine — to 3/7, and even one of those runs was courtesy a misfield by Saeed Ajmal, and was looking a bit pressured.
Cue the fourth over. Luke Wright swung, the ball flared off the bottom edge down to third man where Umer Gul got into picture-perfect position to field — and let the ball go right through his legs. Which was bad enough — what made it worse was that he seemed to find it all highly amusing, as did his captain [who later was to say he was perplexed by how badly Pakistan had fielded] and several of his mates. A delivery later, KP got the strike and Yassir Arafat served him up a no-ball in the form of a nice high full toss to smash over mid on; the re-bowled version of that ball was an a la carte half volley KP smashed into the stratosphere.
From that point on, there was little point watching — Pakistan appeared to figure there was no point trying, really, and to the disgust of the fans, put on one of the most inept fielding displays seen in recent times.
Almost every post-match report I’ve read has taken a passing jab at KP’s ‘Achilles’. Here’s Mike Atherton, who also makes the point that England got lucky to face, in a death game, the one team that looked even more ill-prepared than itself. And here’s Paul Weaver in the Guardian on cricket’s diva:
Kevin Pietersen is the diva of cricket. It is not enough that he is respected; he demands to be loved too. He probably had it inserted in his recently drafted central contract. And how the crowd adored him here last night.
Before the match – the match England had to win – he was seen feeling his stricken achilles with a grimace as a great prima donna might stroke a delicate larynx before taking the stage at La Scala.
Returning to the side to play England’s most important innings, he said afterwards: “It was a huge evening; I was desperate to play. I’ve never had an injury that has kept me out, which has been hard to deal with. I reckon I’m about 70% fit. Hopefully that is the last of it now because I just love playing.”
Pietersen has been bleeding lately and his blood has marked all our clothes. He has been bleeding since the start of the year, when the captaincy was torn from him. King Lear, who was mad, demanded love from his daughters; Pietersen, it seems, insists it is forthcoming from every one and his performances feed from that affection.
Unable to see the considerable part he played in his own downfall it is as if he has been sulking ever since. His performances, in the West Indies, in the Indian Premier League and this summer, have been ordinary, certainly by the standards of this extraordinary cricketer.
Would he play in this crucial match? How England yearned for him and how he lapped up that yearning. He would come riding to England’s rescue but not before he had milked the full drama of the situation.
Writing off the ball, Tanya Aldred points at the full houses that have greeted the World Cup thus far [startling it’s been, too — back in Bombay, I find it difficult to whip up enough enthusiasm to watch these early exchanges, and many friends seem to share that same feeling of ennui] and says that these crowds contain within them the ECB’s greatest challenge.
And so to today — and another death game, this time for Australia who, after being thumped by Chris Gayle the other night, now go up against a Sri Lanka being led, for the first time in this format, by Kumar Sangakkara. On that game, and all else, tomorrow.
