Is Pakistan’s campaign yet again cracking at the seams?

Defeat, they say, is an orphan and leads to a never-ending blame game; and defeat to India is generally extremely onerous on Pakistan players and team management.

The trend continues in the 2015 World Cup as just a few days after the Adelaide nightmare, reports of disharmony between players and coaching staff have started to emerge from Christchurch — the venue for the second game against the West Indies.

A section of the media indicated that incensed fielding coach Grant Luden threatened to leave the team in the immediate aftermath of a tiff with the temperamental trio of Shahid Afridi, Umar Akmal and Ahmed Shehzad.

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) rubbished the claims with a strong rebuttal through a media release on Wednesday. The official stance on the matter is that Luden is staying put and has no intention of quitting the team, at least in the foreseeable future.

But in the case of a World Cup debacle, the foreseeable can very quickly turn into the immediate — forcing an unceremonious and premature end to the tenures of both players and officials.

If the team insiders are to be believed, then the Luden episode has more undercurrents than what the PCB is willing to admit at the moment as Pakistan continue their build-up.

There is an eerie similarity to the war brewing among the coaches and senior players to the scenes witnessed during the 2011 World Cup in Sri Lanka.

After Pakistan lost heavily to New Zealand in a group match at Pallekele, some of the senior players confided in a group of journalists about the demanding training regime of coach Waqar Younis.

Subsequently, stories about some heated exchanges in the dressing room created a hugely challenging environment for all concerned as tired bodies suffered niggles due to the extra exertion.

Waqar, reinstalled as coach last year, is on a mission to resurrect his chequered past at the World Cup but once again finds himself mired in problems of old and the players are seemingly struggling to cope with the training methods, as they had four years ago.

In the days and months leading up to the all-important event, the fast-bowling legend reiterated his desire to win the tournament that brought him scant joy during an otherwise illustrious playing career.

But luck seems to have deserted him again, at least during the first few days. Since the team left for their Down Under sojourn, the players have struggled to lift their game and the warm-up wins in Australia were a short-lived positive blip in an otherwise disheartening ODI run.

There is a surfeit of tactical issues plaguing the team on the field and most certainly the backroom staff as well as the players needs to pull their weight through by squabbling less on the training regime.

But then again, such developments are not new — Pakistan cricket has time and again been sullied by ugly rows, conflicts and intrigues, especially when the going gets tough on the pitch.



It is important to state the obvious here — the team environment and the prevailing friction can be quickly overcome by a change of fortunes on the field. But as things stand, Pakistan have lost all of their last five ODIs. Hence, the burden on the players, fueled by the demands of the World Cup, has quadrupled.

Waqar, chief selector Moin Khan and the rest of the management know full well that they need to raise their game or face the ugly prospect of a premature end to their stints with the PCB.

The players must unite, the management must back them up and conspiracies must be nipped in the bud — a break-up cannot, must not, occur only a week after Valentines.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 19^th,  2015.

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