ICC Champions Trophy 2017: Pakistan and their not-so-subtle art of proving people wrong

Pakistan with their maiden Champions Trophy

A win for Pakistan is never an ordinary event. It is like a meteor that brightens up the night sky and makes everyone sit up and notice, not so much because of its rarity but because of its spectacular unpredictability. Pakistan’s supernova performances are bright and dazzling, the intensity almost the same as the levels of embarrassment they face with their failures.

‘Mercurial’ seems to be an understatement for a team that loses a game by 124 runs (D/L) and then thumps the same opponent by 180 runs in a week’s time. They were assisted by Kohli’s horrendous decision to let them bat pressure-free on a beauty of a batting strip (how could he not recollect what Ganguly did in 2003?) and well, the no-ball – Indians by now can expect their bowlers to bowl no-balls that cost them the big games – that could’ve gotten Fakhar Zaman when he was on 3. Just 3.

Eventually, he smashed 114 off 106 balls. Pakistan doesn’t score 338 every day. Only thrice has Pakistan scored more than that in the last three years and two of those scores have come against UAE and Zimbabwe.

Their No.8 ranking is not a travesty; it is a veritable fact. And yet, after that embarrassing loss to India, they were freed up. When you have hit rock-bottom, what else could go wrong? And as cliched as it may sound, Pakistan are the world’s most dangerous side when they’ve nothing to lose.

In a parallel world, Kohli’s India could’ve picked up the trophy by batting first, because, despite good prevailing batting conditions, even 275 is defendable against Pakistan, whose batsmen, sometimes confuse their roles with that of a cat on a hot tin roof.

As their bowling coach Azhar Mahmood rightly pointed out, bowlers win you tournaments. They thumped favourites and hosts England, thanks to a stellar bowling performance that gave them just 212 to chase, one of the lowest totals the English team had been reduced to since their premature 2015 World Cup exit.

Prior to that Sarfraz and Amir pulled off a heist, to chase down 237 after being 137 for 6 at one point in a mindless collapse. The same Mohammad Amir demolished India’s vaunted top order with pace and movement that was too hot to handle even for the in-form batsmen like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. He ended with 3/16 in 6 overs and Hasan Ali, the man who won the Golden Ball showed how he could pull off deputy duties with the ball with the same elan that he pulls off his explosion-celebration.

Hasan Ali was explosive with the ball as he was with his celebrations

Hasan Ali picked up 13 wickets with an economy of 4.29, the lowest for anyone who has picked at least a wicket in this tournament. Amir’s economy was 4.41, even though he picked up just five scalps. If not for him, Hasan wouldn’t have had that bagful of wickets, though.

Junaid Khan picked up eight of his own at an economy of 4.58. And along with Imad Wasim, Pakistan had four bowlers in the top 10 bowlers this event in terms of economy rates (for anyone with at least a wicket). With the bat, Pakistan found a new star, Fakhar Zaman, who featured in all four wins since his debut, scoring 252 runs at 63.

Pakistan’s fledgeling T20 league deserves a thumbs-up for this star. Azhar Ali had 228 runs and Hafeez nipped in with 148. India had the top two batsmen of the tournament but they just didn’t fire when under fire from Pakistan’s measly, mean bowlers who were hungry – so hungry you could see it in their clenched fists and explosive celebrations and screams – for success, to prove themselves.

Sarfraz Ahmed led Pakistan from the front

Sarfraz Ahmed, who has just captained Pakistan to a miracle at the Oval, is 30 years old. He has played just 75 ODIs. He averages 36 playing at No.6 – which team lets its best batsman bat so low down – with a strike-rate of 88.33. He won them a game they shouldn’t have won, against Sri Lanka and the Champions Trophy would have probably belonged to its suspected owners, the men in blue.

But, Sarfraz pulled Pakistan out of the jaws of defeat, with some assistance from Thisara Perera and a few days later orchestrated a rout of a team that had a 13-2 record against them in all ICC events. The story of Pakistan in this tournament is not very different from the story of their talismanic captain, Sarfraz, or their once-disgraced, former Australian coach Mickey Arthur.

To put things into perspective the ‘uber-talented’ Umar Akmal, at the age of 27, has 116 ODIs with an average of 34.59 batting higher up. Kamran Akmal, aged 35, has 157 ODIs with an average of 26. And yet, as baffling as it may seem, Sarfraz was kept out of the team for the longest time, until the Akmal brothers disqualified themselves with their antics, inconsistency and glorious dropped catches. Did we mention that Sarfraz had once led Pakistan to the U-19 World Cup title as well?

As commentators often point out, Pakistan plays two opponents each time they take to the field.

On their day, they can dismantle any opposition with ease – didn’t they give Australia a real scare in the 2015 World Cup Quarter Finals – because they are used to slugging it out with a tougher opponent. Their own self. Their caprices are undefinable and their whims are seldom timely, on and off the field.

Misbah did help Sarfraz and the sanity is the former’s gift to the team, which despite losing the experience of their big guns, still has Mohammad ‘Professor’ Hafeez and the Twitter-savvy Shoaib Malik. This tournament could well be a watershed moment in Pakistan’s history, which for long has been a story of undulating dunes and sandstorms, great highs and depressing lows.

Sometimes we wonder if Pakistanis have anything other than frayed nerves, having followed their beloved cricket team. But then, once in a while, their team does what they did at the Oval, becoming only the fourth team to win all the three ICC titles. And they did that in Pakistan-like fashion – a jugalbandi of ashes and phoenixes rising from those ashes, rising with the flair of a darting, spitting new ball.

Will they stay afloat this time under a man who is street-smart and stable and like his team had to slug it out to reach where he has? Only time will tell.

For now, time can halt, let this team celebrate, for what celebration can be more heartening to witness than the celebrations of those who don’t have a home.

And will the world finally relent and allow Pakistan and its captain to go back home? Play in front of a crowd, which, after all these years of disappointments and gloriously scripted epics, can handle anything!