Why Your Team Sucks: Pakistan at the 2023 ICC World Cup
To make it to an elite tournament such as this with just 10 nations participating must mean your team is quite special, right? Newsflash: the ‘World’ Cup is a misnomer, ICC is cricket’s ruling body just for name’s sake, ODI cricket is on its deathbed, and your team Pakistan sucks.
Aamer Sohail, Rashid Latif, Imran Khan, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Wahab Riaz – Pakistan cricket has consistently produced great World Cup stalwarts politicians throughout its history. Few things in the subcontinent country are afforded a bigger status than cricket and it really takes some true determination to keep failing as spectacularly as Pakistan has managed over the past couple of decades and more.
A paradox of paradoxes, a conundrum of absurd possibilities, Pakistan cricket lies beyond comprehension and rationale. Over the years, the entity has warped itself in controversies such that chaos no longer needs a trigger but is inherent, where every seed of positive thought is bound to meet a bizarrely entertaining doom. They are indeed the true manifestation of the Catch-22 problem – the unpredictability that plagues the PCB can be solved with democratic and accountable functioning, as long as the all-powerful overlords approve of it.
Things have been turning for the better for Pakistan cricket though. They have resumed hosting international cricket after a long hiatus. In fact, they are actually the official hosts of the 2023 World Cup as well – just the matches are being held in India but that’s an irrelevant detail.
The team has improved significantly as well and once again Pakistan is entering a World Cup as one of the favourites. They are expected to go deep and genuinely contend for the trophy, in the same way Royal Challengers Bangalore have been challenging for the IPL for the last 15 years – every fan believes THIS is the year the management changes and the new crop of players push through the mental blockage, and then again the next year and the next…
Unlike previous editions, however, there is a tangible element to Pakistan’s success. They are ranked an appreciable number two in the rankings and not long ago were on top of the charts. On an unrelated note, they capped off their preparations for the tournament with a comprehensive loss to Sri Lanka. But that’s fine, they are the best-ranked team so no big deal *checks notes* uhm, it was all tactical because never peak before a World Cup, amirite? #BigBrainThinking
The last time Pakistan were favoured such in a tournament and actually ended up going all the way was the Champions Trophy in 2017. It bodes well for them that the head coach from those glorious days, Mickey Arthur, is set to return to the Pakistan dugout for the World Cup. He has actually been in the role since April earlier this year. Why did you not see him during the Asia Cup then? Well, there is a catch (something one rarely sees in reference to Pakistan) – he has joined Pakistan on a part-time basis. YES, the PCB was told by Mickey he’d rather continue coaching a second-division County team alongside and they were only totally cool with it – some jokes write themselves.
Speaking of jokes, Pakistan fans on social media are unusually optimistic about their team’s chances even though they have been speedrunning towards failure. Scriptwriters clearly work overtime when it comes to Pakistan cricket, making sure the chaos peaks just before the final boss fight. Fakhar Zaman destined to have a break-out World Cup? A perfectly timed drop in form wherein it is impossible to exclude him from the squad and keep him in the lineup seems appropriate. Naseem Shah the X-factor? How about running him into the ground until he is struck by injury? Sounds fun. And as a cherry on the top, why not take Shadab Khan as the only regular frontline spin option into a World Cup in India? The 24-year-old has of late looked a better batter than a bowler, which would have been deemed impossible by anyone who has seen him wield the willow. It could have made for a good rags-to-riches sports flick, if the riches were not a necessary part of the equation.
But hey, they have better-than-Virat-Kohli real-life-Iron-Man ODI-GOAT future-Prime-Minister answer-to-world-hunger Babar Azam, something the Pakistan Twitterati mentions more than Gautam Gambhir mentions his 97 in the 2011 World Cup final. Jokes aside, adding Haris Rauf and Shaheen Afridi to the equation does make them seem like a good proposition but there have been more exciting prospects in Pakistan cricket than dropped catches, and that’s saying something. Thus, with the sky as their limit, I can’t wait to see what new method Pakistan formulates to utterly waste their potential and reclaim their rightful place as the cricketing world’s laughing stock.