Allow me to share a very fine quote regarding expectations:
"Expectations are premeditated resentments."
I feel this quote beautifully summarizes the relationship between the Pakistan cricket team and its fans. The cricket team isn't skilled enough to live up to the fans expectations and the fans resent the cricket team for failing to live up to them.
I wanted to particularly highlight the expectations aspect of our society because I feel this is something that is conveniently ignored in our part of the world. If someone in our society talks about lowering expectations, often the reply back is "you're not ambitious". Culturally we have synonymized expectations with ambitions which is a terrible thing to do. And I use the word culturally because it has become a cultural issue.
Coming back to the cricket team, we as fans need to embrace reality rather than deflect from it by using buzzwords like ambition, and if I'm allowed to take some words from Shoaib Akhtar, daleri and jazba. The unfortunate reality of Pakistan cricket over the past 10 years or so is that the country is not producing quality cricketers barring a few. You cannot pump ambition, jazba, daleri into guys and expect outstanding results when the underlying base of being skilled enough to succeed at the international level with regards to batting and bowling is hollow. It's not going to happen no matter how much you insist it would.
There is literally no cricketing country on Earth that gets so much scrutiny on their players as Pakistan does. One bad match and the knives are out on the players by the fans as well as ex-cricketers. This puts the team under immense mental pressure even before they have stepped out on the field. England have lost multiple matches to the likes of Ireland, Netherlands and Scotland. Scotland posted 371 against England in an ODI. Australia have shelled a Test match to Bangladesh and lost to Zimbabwe recently. Never have their fans or media or ex-cricketers lashed out in public on those results. They take it in their strides and move on. It's only Pakistan where fans and ex-cricketers lambast the team if they lose regardless of the opposition. Imagine a Pakistani team conceding 371 against Netherlands. It would be the Day of Judgment in Pakistan.The pressure this creates on the team is unimaginable. I mentioned in some other thread how this pressure of not being allowed to fail ensures that Pakistan go in with their absolute full strength team against minnow every game which in turn hinders the ability to create a pool of international players.
The recent criticism of Babar-Rizwan as an opening pair is a classic case of Pakistan fans and ex-cricketers raising their expectations to stratospheric levels because they see Buttler, Warner, Rohit as openers in other teams. The truth is, Babar and Rizwan are the best that Pakistan has to offer. Yes, their strike-rates can be a problem, especially when batting first, but that is something that can be improved. Suggesting to remove them altogether as openers is a mindset of ripping things out and starting from scratch rather than trying to improve upon the existing. This habit of ours that the guy sitting on the bench is somehow the answer to our ills is what breeds expectations which ultimately leads to resentments.
As much as the onus of delivering success on the field rests with the players, a lot also lies at the feet of the fans to temper their expectations and align it with the skill levels of the team at hand. Allow the team to fail.
