Games before the match

Former Pakistan head coach Waqar Younis, in a recent interview stated that “when you are touring England, it doesn’t matter where you’re from; you just have to be careful with the controversies”. He further added that “there are hawks out there looking at you”.

And right now, these hawks are hovering over the Pakistan cricket team — specifically left-arm pacer Mohammad Amir who has served his ban and completed his rehabilitation but a statistic to note: it is his first wicket in England, after the 2010 spot-fixing controversy, and he was recently welcomed with a headline by BBC where he was referred to as a ‘convicted spot-fixer’.

If we look closely at the series, it is the first time since the 2010 series that the Pakistan team is visiting England. There are a lot of other themes to ponder upon but the English media is adamant on highlighting Amir’s past — one fitting way to put the opponent team’s morale down.

Misbahul Haq is visiting England for the first time in his career to participate in a five-day encounter; also, he is captaining the side whose last visit to the country does not evoke good memories. His legacy will be decided in the English conditions as he is blamed to have led the side to victories in Asian conditions only. However, British media’s reaction to this is, ‘sorry not interested’. Meanwhile, there are a number of players who haven’t played any Test for the national team in England and this would be the first time they would be representing the Pakistani flag but again it is not as interesting as Amir’s case.

The downside of this strategy followed by the British media might be faced by the English team who think that Amir is the only Pakistani bowler who will cause ‘some problems’ for them. With Yasir Shah in Pakistan’s ranks, they have underestimated the effect the leggie can have in the English conditions. Meanwhile, other pacers such as Wahab Riaz, Sohail Khan, Rahat Ali and Imran Khan can also be a handful on the seaming English pitches as was evident during the three-day tour matches against Somerset and Sussex — a fact that the British media did not prefer to focus on.

There is not a shimmer of doubt that Amir will play a significant role in the series but the tactics employed by the British media to hit Pakistan where it hurts them the most can backfire according to former batsman Kevin Pietersen who thinks that this might drive the 24-year-old to perform better than expected to prove his point.

Although there are two groups of people who believe that Amir should or shouldn’t have been allowed to return to international cricket but all of them concur to one opinion that the left-arm pacer is an unbelievably talented operator with the ball.

Thus, when the first ball will be bowled by a Pakistani or an English bowler at Lord’s in the first of the four-match Test series — that’s when the real match will begin, and the media games that cashed in on the pre-series speculations will be answered; however, they should not be expected to die down.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 14^th, 2016.

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