Geoff Lawson - Australia owe Pakistan and the game a long overdue trip

[MenInG]

Geoff Lawson : Tour of duty: Australia owe Pakistan and the game a long overdue trip

It is perhaps trite to say we live in interesting times, and when I say “we” I do really mean the lot of us.

Novel viruses have come and gone before, but the current little bugger has used the 21st century’s connectivity and globalisation to reach every cranny; it has even gotten into Antarctic bases.

Naturally, sport of all standards has been affected. Communities that use sport as leisure, recreation and simply as a means of keeping connected have found themselves confined indoors or, at best, forming small outdoor groups, with team sports next to impossible. Professional sport has limped and lingered on but, most importantly, it persevered, adapting and flexing to COVID-19.

Whether it is the NBA, NFL, NHL, the Bashes, Ashes or myriad soccer leagues throughout the world, the fans could at least tune in and escape for an hour or so. The players have been troopers, spending weeks, sometimes months, in quarantine accommodation and even more in competition “bubbles”, separated from the public, their families and, recently, each other, yet turning up to do their very best.

Some haven’t let these confinements pass without a decrying quip, but don’t begrudge them a relieving moan: everyone needs to get frustrations off their chests in these times.

Which brings us to the Australian cricket team’s next major overseas assignment: three Tests, three one-day internationals and a lone T20 in Pakistan in March and April. The Australians have ridden out the vast majority of the COVID-19 disruption by playing at home. They haven’t played a Test overseas since the Ashes in 2019. They haven’t played in Pakistan since 1998, the tour on which Mark Taylor made 334 at Peshawar. They cancelled a tour at late notice in 2008 and the ICC moved the Champions Trophy from Pakistan.

Pakistan is a major Test-playing nation and Australia haven’t found time to visit in 24 years. It’s not good enough.

The headline in The Hindu, India’s leading daily, during the week lauded “Australia will tour Pakistan with full-strength squad”. That would be nice.

Australia toured in 1980, a few months after Russia invaded Afghanistan. Vaccinations for typhoid, cholera, hepatitis and yellow fever were compulsory, malaria tablets were issued and all were received willingly.

The Australian Cricket Board (now Cricket Australia) did not undertake any pre-tour security trips or ask the players did they want to go: it was a take-it-or-leave-it situation, and if you chose to leave it, then don’t think about wearing the baggy green again.

The Pakistani people have a penchant for cricket, maybe even more so than their eastern neighbours, which is quite a statement that in no way diminishes the Indian passion for the game.

The tour went ahead and there were no “security” issues, apart from having a trip to the Khyber Pass limited to getting within 10 kilometres of the border, then controlled by Russian troops.

Pakistan’s then general president Muhammad Zia ul-Haq had invoked martial law and had Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the previous prime minister, hung in public shortly before the Australian team arrived. Interesting times. But not interesting enough to have a tour called off.

Australia toured again in 1982: identical itinerary, sans the Khyber Pass. Greg Ritchie made a fine hundred at Faisalabad and Imran Khan assailed us with reverse swing, but at no stage was there a thought of bailing out early; cricket held primacy.

The Pakistani people have a penchant for cricket, maybe even more so than their eastern neighbours, which is quite a statement that in no way diminishes the Indian passion for the game. The two countries were once one, and have much in common, but Indian fans have had a buffet of cricket forever, while Pakistan has been starved for almost 14 years.

No team has deemed it too dangerous to tour India; it has taken COVID-19 to divert the IPL to Dubai, whereas Pakistan have made the Emirates their home.

I had the wonderful chance to live in Lahore for almost two years when I was Pakistan coach and found the people unfailingly hospitable, even when we lost a game or two. This Australian team will be feted.

The cancellations of Australian tours planned for 2008 and ’09 were at a time of relative stability in Afghanistan, but the Pakistan Taliban were destroying girls schools and holding hostages in the Swat Valley in the country’s north, while keeping clear of the big cities of Lahore and Karachi.

Unbeknown to the world, Osama Bin Laden was holed up in the garrison town of Abbottabad, where the national cricket team trained at the military base, literally across the road.

In April 2009, the Sri Lankan team was attacked a few hundred metres from Gaddafi Stadium. In Sri Lanka at the time, the Tamil Tigers were on a do-or-die final campaign. No Taliban or associated terrorist group ever claimed responsibility for the attack on the Sri Lanka team, or were ever shown to be responsible for the shootout, but that was the final straw for cricket to be played in a cricket-crazy country.

Top-flight cricket has gradually returned, with the Pakistan Super League holding some finals and then most of the competition (COVID-ravaged) at home last year. The new PSL season, which has just begun, is in full swing, with international players taking their spots on the rosters.

Recently, as international teams dipped their toes back in the water, New Zealand cancelled their tour on the morning of the first one-day international in September, their first trip since 2003. England also cancelled in September. Michael Holding labelled that decision “Western arrogance” and there is a deal of relevance to his point. Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ramiz Raja went further, accusing England of “failing a member of the cricket fraternity”.

I can picture 30,000 fans filling the terraces at Gaddafi Stadium every day of the Test match, munching on their pakoras and supping on sugarcane juice. It is one of the great stadiums in the cricket world. They will be raucous and respectful, supporting the home-town heroes and admiring the Australian stars.

Any hesitant Australian player does not understand that cricket is not just about Boxing Day at the MCG or the Adelaide Oval under lights, it’s about the broad and glorious differences that broach cultures, religions and languages.

Whether Australia win or lose is irrelevant; the important bit is turning up and playing, putting your body where your mouth is and demonstrating that you are truly a “member of the cricket fraternity” – and proving Michael Holding wrong.

https://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricke...game-a-long-overdue-trip-20220129-p59s6x.html

 

[MoJoJoJo]

Brilliant read from lawson, he lived in pak during his coaching tenure and things were relatively more unsafe back in the day. Hope the tour goes ahead.

 

[wrongun]

Rarely heard Lawson as eloquent as the ends of that article. He's reached a new level in his writing.

Good points and I hope they are heard.

 

[MenInG]

Brilliant stuff from Lawson - straight from the heart this one.

 

[kukkad kamaal]

Can anyone tell me what is this about the end of the article- "proving Michael holding wrong" ?

 

[Last Monetarist]

Can anyone tell me what is this about the end of the article- "proving Michael holding wrong" ?

He's referring to Holding's comment about 'western arrogance' when England refused to tour, essentially hoping that Australia doesn't display the same arrogance.

 

[Savak]

Delusional Lawson regarding the turnout. Pakistanis have never valued test cricket regardless of the opposition

 

[Saj]

Lovely read from a great man.

Despite how he was treated at times by PCB, Lawson has a soft heart and a lot of love for Pakistan cricket.

 

[DeadlyVenom]

It will be a massive failure if the grounds are empty for this series. We have put forward a myth that the Pakistani public is cricket starved but the reality is they don't care.

PCB should bus in supporters for this series the same way political parties bus in people for jalsas.

 

[Last Monetarist]

It will be a massive failure if the grounds are empty for this series. We have put forward a myth that the Pakistani public is cricket starved but the reality is they don't care.

PCB should bus in supporters for this series the same way political parties bus in people for jalsas.

It will be a massive reality check when the crowds are empty for high-profile Test series in Pakistan. Fact is that the ordinary person in Pakistan isn't really impacted whether Pakistan play cricket at home or in the UAE. It's up to the PCB to improve infrastructure and facilities at the stadiums to ensure that crowds don't find watching live cricket a complete chore.

 

[moghul]

Nice, very nice from our ex-coach.
26 Englishmen are playing in PSL, all we need is 16 Australians to come and play at the same venue.

 

[MenInG]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">James Faulkner "it's great to be here in Pakistan playing cricket. They've been deprived of a lot of cricket & we will do our part & come over & support all the fans who love cricket. It's good to be here and hopefully the remainder of the tournament goes well with the team" <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PSL?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PSL</a></p>— Saj Sadiq (@SajSadiqCricket) <a href="https://twitter.com/SajSadiqCricket/status/1487481285933244418?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 29, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[cricketAXEpert]

Delusional Lawson regarding the turnout. Pakistanis have never valued test cricket regardless of the opposition

Nowadays Pakistanis fans dont come to watch tests in the stadiums. But up until the 90s Test cricket used to draw decent crowds. It was in the 90s the crowds begin to diminsh as limited overs cricket became more and more popular.

 

[MenInG]

Geoff Lawson : Cummins proves he can handle top job despite ‘soft’ launch on the field

The sages of politics reckon you should never waste a good crisis, and there’s been plenty not to waste in Australian cricket recently.

Former captain Tim Paine was called up from the boondocks to fill the moral abyss that precipitated the attempted ball tampering in Cape Town in 2018. The underlying causes of that crisis ran deep, through decades of negligence, cheek turning and sandy line drawing by players and administrators. Paine’s mission was not so much to lead a talented team toward better cricket, it was to lead a talented team toward being liked, principally by the home fans.

Australian captain Pat Cummins responds to criticism from former players, including Mitchell Johnson.

The siege mentality that high achievers often mobilise to keep their playing edges sharp can also dull them to reality. Suspensions and character revisions became a part of the reality check.

After that away series in South Africa, Australia’s next tour was the 2019 Ashes. That series was drawn 2-2 after Mitchell Starc was mysteriously dropped from the final Test, which was subsequently lost. Australia have not played a single Test match away from home since September 2019. It’s been five years since an Australian Test tour of India, which is the biggest cricket market in the world.

Australia’s absence from the Test championship final in 2021 was more a result of xenophobia than a tardy over rate against India at the MCG. Losing to the Indian Second XI on home soil was the final nail in that championship bid.

The Test championship is predicated on the better teams being able to win away from home; Australia didn’t even bother playing away from home.

Paine’s captaincy was essentially successful, within the limited parameters, because he worked with a softer edge, but not a blunt one. The circumstances of his termination reflected poorly on his past behaviour but deflected from the good work of recent years. The past had been dragged into the present, and there were no winners.

Pat Cummins has shown already that he can look and think into the future. His thoughtful, yet forthright, comments this week on the departure of Justin Langer were those of a leader who can build on the successes and mistakes of the past. The themes of his interview were gratitude and progress. He clearly is his own man with his own view and vocabulary.

The visionary looked down the road, not obscured by the dust of the track just travelled. In light of the Australian captain’s appearances recently, I revisited some of the discussion from December as to who would replace Paine as skipper.

The single stumbling block from the illuminati to Cummins’ ascension appeared to be that “he was a fast bowler”, which is a description of a skill within the game and contains no argument at all. It’s like saying you can’t be Prime Minister because you’re left-handed.

Cummins has dealt with press conferences, COVID-19 bubbles, bowling changes, field placements and naysayers with the calmness and efficiency normally reserved for long-term captains, who might also be batsmen. Granted, the opposition weren’t at their best this summer, but you can only beat who’s in front of you. It has been a “soft launch” in some ways; 4-0 is a decisive result, delivered with very little scoreboard pressure.

That may be about to change with an away series against an unpredictable and potent opponent.

Whereas a number of the Australian squad will have played in India, Sri Lanka and the dry heat of the Arabian Peninsula, none have played a Test match in Pakistan. I have no doubts about the safety of the team; the Pakistan Cricket Board and the Pakistan government will have all the elements organised. They are well practiced in handling security arrangements.

The issue for Cummins and the team is what brand of cricket they will play, or will be allowed to play. They will be unlikely to have conditions similar to those of the recent Ashes, where pitches suited seam and swing bowling and therefore made a potent Australian attack irresistible.

The Pakistan cricket season runs at the same time as the Australian season because the climate is monsoonal. Cricket is played all year round, but the wet season becomes problematic. It’s like playing cricket in Darwin in our summer: warm enough, but often a tad too damp, and mightily humid.

The first Test at Rawalpindi starts on March 4. The third and final Test is up north in Lahore on March 21, late in the season so pitches that did suit seam-up merchants in September through the new year are tending to dry out and favour the spinners. Australia will most likely need Nathan Lyon and Mitchell Swepson in all three Tests, and that will require a whole new perspective from Cummins on team selections, match tactics, cricket diplomacy and waking up about 5am as the local mosques call out the azan.

Once or twice he should wake early and admire the call. Azan literally means “to listen”, “to hear”, “to be informed about” – all methods to understand and thence to improve.

Learning about the culture of Pakistan’s people will be an asset to understanding their motivations and how their team goes about their favourite sport. This tour will not just be about cricket matches.

Cummins’ nascent captaincy experience does not yet embrace a comprehensive range of conditions; he has learnt his trade in the modern environment where elite players spend precious little time in Sheffield Shield matches, especially on late-game wearing pitches.

Pakistan will present challenges of the best kind.

While the chattering class have their gaze fixed firmly in the rear-view mirror, Cummins acknowledges the past and prepares for the future.

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/sp...ml?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed

 

[MenInG]

It has been almost a quarter of a century since the Australian men’s cricket team toured Pakistan. In 1998, Mark Taylor made 334 at the frontier city of Peshawar, 50 kilometres from the Afghanistan border, declaring overnight on that score after matching Don Bradman.

In July 2008, Australia abandoned a planned tour of Pakistan and the subsequent Champions Trophy weeks before departure, refusing, on security and health grounds, to visit an elite cricket nation despite continuing the 2005 Ashes tour after central London was attacked by terrorists and 52 people were killed. Not one match was postponed or cancelled in the UK.

Australian cricket teams have a preference for home soil; this tour will be the first overseas trip since the Ashes of 2019. In Mike Coward’s book Cricket Beyond the Bazaar, he writes: “With few exceptions the international cricketer considers a tour of Pakistan an occupational hazard rather than a peak of his profession. An insidious negativism about the game in the Islamic Republic has existed in the minds of the vast majority of Australian cricketers since they played Fazal Mahmood on the mats in Karachi in 1956.” He bamboozled Australia, taking 13-114 as the home side won by nine wickets.

I had the experience of tours of Pakistan in 1980 and 1982. The “highlights” were getting near enough to Afghanistan to hear the sounds of Russian artillery echoing across the Khyber Pass and catching Dengue fever. My 1982 diary concluded with an unprintable thought about ever visiting the country again.

Things changed a lot in the next 20 years. Taylor’s 1998 tour report must have been damning, apart from the batting quality of the Shahi Bagh Stadium pitch. Australian teams pulled out of scheduled tours On three separate occasions. As historian C.L.R James opined: “What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?”

In the early evening of July 20, 2008, at Royal Birkdale Golf Club, Paddy Harrington seared a fading five wood into a gale to within a few feet of the cup on the 17th to snuff out Greg Norman’s last chance of another British Open title. Four time zones east, the Pakistan cricket squad rose at dawn to venture 120km north of the capital Islamabad to the garrison town of Abbottabad.

A few kilometres from the centre of the city in the northern suburb of Kakul is located the Pakistan Military Academy – America’s West Point or Australia’s Duntroon. Abutting the academy is the Army School of Physical Training, where the cricketers would be housed and train in the strictly disciplined environment.

The head coach had visions of Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf, Shoaib Malik and Umar Gul suffering career-ending injuries. I did draw the line at the use of live ammunition during evasive drills.

The players were greeted at the officers mess by the ceremonial slaughter of a goat, its throat slashed in front of the blanching team. It’s considered a lucky omen – not so much for the goat, but the curry that evening was delicious.

On July 26, 2008, several thousand kilometres west of the Swat Valley, Cadel Evans stuffed up Le Tour time trial and lost the yellow jersey, nine bombs went off in Bangalore and Hyderabad, the Zimbabwe government issued a $100 billion banknote and Cricket Australia announced an Indian tour in lieu of the canned Pakistan trip. Back at the army school, the Pakistan squad carried heavy logs three kilometres up steep hill while the coaching staff took the 4WDs on the scenic route.

On the way back, the route taken was usually through two sets of security gates, but this day security was heightened and our bus had to take the alternative route, which meant travelling around the outside of the perimeter fences on a road we had not seen before.

As we headed down the home stretch, I glanced out of the window and noted a building that seemed to me out of place: three stories, the top stories windowless, barbed wire around the second story eaves, a high security wall around the whole complex and, well, just different – like a brick bungalow among fibro huts.

I turned to my companion, David Dwyer, who was the team’s strength and conditioning coach, who I had whisked away from the NSW Waratahs, and motioned toward the building: “That looks a bit weird around here, don’t you reckon? Might be the local drug baron’s castle.”

It was said half in jest, half seriously because the poppy fields of Afghanistan weren’t all that far away.

At 11.30pm that night a “red alert” bellowed through the bullhorns of the army school. “Do not leave your barracks under any circumstances”, the message, delivered at 100 decibels, in Pashto, Punjabi and, thankfully, English said.

I wondered what it could be. A stray US Army drone perhaps? They had been bombing villages on the Afghan border recently with collateral damage. Or maybe the Indian dispute over Kashmir?

Whatever it was it reminded me of the fragility of the peace on the eastern and western extremities of Pakistan. Half an hour later, the alert was cancelled.

The next morning we were told that the intelligence services had intercepted a mobile phone conversation nearby and a local threat had been “neutralised”.

Fast-forward to May 2, 2011, and I was having breakfast in the LaLit Hotel in New Delhi with current Australia stand-in coach Andrew McDonald, then with the Delhi Daredevils in the IPL, who were due to play the Lawson-coached Kochi Tuskers that evening.

The breakfast room was full of TVs and the news services are front and centre at 8am. The sound is low but the words on one screen caught my gaze: “Bin Laden found – US claims body of 9/11 architect.”

This is the biggest news of the year; biggest of the decade. I point “Ronnie” McDonald in the direction of the screen. “I wonder where they found him?” he ponders.

“Found in Pakistan,” the TV says. No surprise there really, as he was strongly rumoured to be holed up in a cave somewhere in the tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

“I wonder where in Pakistan?” I offered.

“Found in Abbottabad,” the TV answered.

“I’ve been to Abbottabad a couple of times,” I tell the increasingly engaged McDonald. “Just where in Abbottabad?”

We get the answer shortly. In Kakul, right next to the Army School of Physical Training, within a couple of hundred metres of our barracks, in fact. Hiding in plain sight, as it were.

The red alert on the evening of July 26, 2008, might just have been Osama ducking out for groceries.

Three years on, the red alert was again called, but this time it was for three American stealth helicopters, which must have swooped above the barracks that housed the Pakistan cricket team three years before.

In 2019, I was in Canada coaching the Toronto nationals in the GT20 tournament and met the man who was first into Osama bin Laden’s compound that night after the capture and saw the crashed US helicopter. He had lived straight across the fence from the Army School of Physical Training. Cricket takes you to mysterious places to meet interesting people.

I was staying in a room on the fifth floor of the Islamabad Marriot six weeks previous, overlooking the site that was severely damaged by a truck bomb on September 20, 2008, killing 54 people. Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers Association used this terrorist act yonks from any cricket facility to further justify the cancellation of the tour.

International cricket is returning to Pakistan, slowly. The Pakistan Super League T20 tournament had been transferred to the UAE but is now back on home soil. To see the vision from Gaddafi Stadium this week of the Pakistan Super League matches was heartening. The drone shots took in my old residence at the National Cricket Academy just across the road and I yearn for a return visit.

The Pakistani people have sorely missed the sight of their heroes on the turf of Gaddafi Stadium, National Stadium Lahore, Iqbal Stadium Faisalabad and Multan. It takes more than one international terrorist tsar to scare those people, and I can lay claim to one of the most historical brushes with infamy.

Pat Cummins has an opportunity to prove his captaincy is not limited to home pitches and friendly environments on this tour. The cricket will be of a different style: late season, dry, turning and maybe low-bouncing pitches. His batsmen will need to improve against spin and his team balance may include three spinners. His team will have to adapt to be successful.

Winning away from home is difficult for every Test nation, but whatever challenges that come their way on the cricket grounds they will be hosted with warmth and respect, and their security will be in good hands.

https://www.watoday.com.au/sport/cr...-deserve-the-khyber-pass-20220225-p59zov.html