India vs Pakistan: Level-headedness collides vs volatility amid political drama

Mercurial. Volatile. Unpredictable. Self-destructive.

When it comes to Pakistan and cricket, the adjectives flow easily. Not all of them are always complimentary, but they accurately paint the picture of a team that can traverse the spectrum from despair to delight, from agony to ecstasy, in the blink of an eye.

To write a Pakistan side, any Pakistan side, off is an exercise fraught with peril and risk. They can be pedestrian and awe-inspiring in the same game, or go in the opposite direction, which is why while they might not start every tournament as favourites, they will always attract wary attention.

It’s not been a great T20 Asia Cup for Salman Agha and his men, not by a long stretch. Admittedly, they have taken their appointed place in the Super Fours – anything other than that would have been catastrophic because apart from India, their other two Group A opponents were Oman and UAE – but they have been far from convincing, the batting a work very much in progress, and reasonably slowly at that.

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A chain of events that hasn’t covered anyone in glory

In normal course, the lack of top-order runs would have been a major talking point beyond the realms of the changing room too, but there’s been very little that can be classified as normal in the last week. India versus Pakistan on a cricket field is a crowd-puller even though the rivalry isn’t as evenly matched as it once used to be. But it has assumed an entirely different hue in the seven days since Suryakumar Yadav and Agha didn’t shake hands before the toss ahead of their league fixture last Sunday.

There was no post-match meet-and-greet between rival players that has become the norm in team sports across disciplines either, India choosing not to reciprocate Pakistan’s move towards exchanging pleasantries once the on-field hostilities had ended. That set in motion a chain of events that hasn’t covered anyone in glory.

Agha stayed away from the post-match presentation ceremony in protest, the Pakistan Cricket Board dashed off an email to the International Cricket Council asking for Andy Pycroft, the match referee, to be pulled out of the tournament, cancelled a match-eve press conference ahead of their contest against UAE and were instructed by their bosses not to leave for the ground as scheduled the following evening as fears of a boycott loomed before wise heads came to the fore and the match began an hour behind schedule.

Ruled by the head, not the heart

These aren’t ideal circumstances in which one can give off their best. India’s players find themselves in a similar, but not same, predicament as their neighbours, though where Pakistan have been defiant and passive-aggressive, Suryakumar and his boys have opted to maintain stoicism and an air of bonhomie that was best reflected in their interactions with Oman’s players after Friday night’s close shave.

Unlike Pakistan, India generally don’t blow hot and cold. They have, over the years, maintained an equanimity and level-headedness that has, their skillsets apart, contributed to their lop-sided dominance of Pakistan in World Cups of both limited-overs versions. India have been better historically in allowing themselves to be ruled by their head, not their heart. The ability to set emotion aside in the unforgiving cauldron of India-Pakistan cricket is rare and commendable, and there is little to suggest that Suryakumar and his troops don’t have what it takes to re-emulate their illustrious predecessors.

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Pakistan’s propensity to play the victim card hasn’t won them too many friends. Whatever sympathy there might have been after they were left high and dry in their endeavour to meet their Indian counterparts after Sunday’s seven-wicket defeat has dissipated following their subsequent aggressive stance, their petulant ‘dump Pycroft or else…’ hollow threat and the dissemination of half-truths, including their insistence that Pycroft had apologised to Agha and their team manager even as the ICC has insisted that all the Zimbabwean told them during their closed-door meeting was that the miscommunication with Agha with regard to not attempt to shake hands with Suryakumar was ‘regrettable’.

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More than syntactically, there is a world of difference in those two assertions. For now, Pakistan can claim the high ground because the ICC hasn’t reacted to the official PCB statement, but high grounds are an insurance against rising water levels, not a guarantee for on-field success.

Pakistan are still carrying a ‘hard done by’ card which in the past they have used to their advantage. It remains to be seen if this current bunch, which contains numerous cocky individuals that border on the irreverent – among them misfiring opener Saim Ayub and abrasive leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed – has the temperament and the cricketing skills to do so. They were woefully below par in every department against India; worryingly from their perspective, they failed to impose themselves with the bat against Oman and UAE, ranked much lower.

Their travails have started at the top, where opener Ayub has failed to trouble the scorers despite three visits to the batting crease, and spilled over to the middle order with the skipper a particular disappointment after a high of 20 and a tally of 23 in his three hits. Mohammad Haris has tapered off after a bright start and Fakhar Zaman has been inconsistent, all of which has forced Pakistan to scramble rather than bury the ‘lesser’ opponents under a mountain of runs.

When the batting has come a cropper previously, Pakistan’s exceptional bowlers have bailed them out numerous times. Shaheen Shah Afridi and Haris Rauf, good as they are, don’t fall in the Wasim Akram-Waqar Younis category. They have sporadically troubled India over the years but on tracks where their pace has been blunted, they must use the air as their ally if they are to prevent the Abhishek Sharma-fuelled Indians from doing all the running.

Can Pakistan channel the spirit of ‘92? 

Pakistan’s bouncebackability is their USP, a grand proclivity to buck the odds that is without parallel. Nowhere was that more evident than at the 1992 World Cup, under the inspirational leadership of Imran Khan. Down and seemingly out for the count, Pakistan rose like the proverbial Phoenix from the ashes; when all seemed lost, they were thrown a lifeline against England by the weather gods, from which there was no looking back.

For Pakistan not to lose a seventh successive white-ball international to India, it is imperative that they summon the spirit of that squad. They will have taken note of how singularly ineffective India’s bowlers were against Oman’s top three, while being mindful of the fact that India rested Jasprit Bumrah and Varun Chakravarthy and therefore were without 40 per cent of their strike force.

As for India, they have somehow managed to embrace the happy space that revolves largely around themselves. They can’t but be aware of the unrest in the opposition camp, but they haven’t allowed themselves to be consumed by it. Seeing and hearing Suryakumar fielding questions at the pre-game press conference, one came away convinced that India have found means to disassociate themselves from the events unfolding around them over which they have little say. It is this trait, as much as their celebrated skills, that makes them the team to beat as the tournament hurtles towards its end after a timid, unexciting beginning.