By the standards of most Pakistan touring teams, the commotion caused by Wasim Akram’s announcement that he had no intention of playing in the Test matches against South Africa came earlier than usual (within 24 hours of the tourists’ arrival, give or take an hour or so), but amounted to a mere hiccup in relative terms.
I liked coach Richard Pybus’s downbeat take on the matter. “I think,” he said, “there was a breakdown in communications.”
Pybus has been in and out of the job three times and so diplomacy has probably become second nature to him by now, but the truth might also be that Pakistan have no need of Wasim for the Test matches. They have enough swing, seam and genuinely fast bowling resources to get by quite nicely, thank you.
But they will have Wasim for the one-dayers, which start at Kingsmead on Sunday, and which, in the context of this summer, make up the business end of this tour. Come March and no one in either South Africa or Pakistan will be particularly concerned with the outcome of the Test matches.
And Wasim, now 36, could still prove a key figure in the world cup. He has, unquestionably, the pedi-gree. At the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1992 he produced perhaps the two most perfect deliveries yet bowled in one-day cricket: an away-swinger that nipped past the outside edge of Allan Lamb’s bat to clip the off-stump followed by an inswinger that castled Chris Lewis. The two wickets stopped an England recovery dead in its tracks and set up Pakistan’s 22-run victory in the world cup final.
He may well be the best left-arm quick bowler to have played the game — whippy, deceptive and with an innate ability to jump around and pull faces. But, as mentioned, he is not the only string in Pakistan’s bow and it is the quality of the tourists’ quick bowling resources that prompts not a few to look beyond Australia and South Africa to Pakistan as possible winners of next year’s world cup.
Unlike their sub-continental cousins, India and Sri Lanka, Paki-stan are well equipped for the pace and bounce of South African pitches. The captain, Waqar Younis, has slowed down from the tearaway of the early 1990s — when the phrase “to be Waqared” was coined by English county batsmen to describe the sensation of having your toes crushed by an inswinging yorker delivered at close to 100 miles an hour — but he remains a very fine medium-pacer.
And, of course, there is Shoaib Akhtar, the “Rawalpindi Express”. There is about Shoaib, when he comes charging in from somewhere near the sightscreen, a sense of the sheer pleasure of bowling as fast as he can, the instinct that prompts young boys to pick up a ball and let it go as hard as they can at their friends.
Shoaib has had his problems, but when he’s at full steam you are often taken by the feeling that, at least in part, cricket was designed with people like him in mind.
With this natural talent at their disposal, though, why is it that Paki-stan have not been more successful? Why, in fact, aren’t they unbeatable? The answer may have something to do with the fact that pride and ferocity are often accompanied by stubborness and a refusal to look at an issue from different perspectives.
Legend has it that at one point, when Wasim and Waqar shared the new ball in the mid-1990s they were barely on speaking terms, requiring mid-on or mid-off to act as inter- mediaries for field changes.
You can never be quite sure which Pakistan side has arrived on the morning of any particular game. It is this uncertainty of temperament, which translates into inconsistency, which has been their Achilles heel.
Over the next five matches, then, South Africa will, or at least should, seek to gain a psychological ascendancy at this early stage. This will involve the cricket itself coupled with what goes on in the mind.
As far as the former is concerned, South Africa have cause to be reasonably confident, as any side would that can include perhaps the most complete player in the game today.
Jacques Kallis, it scarcely needs to be said, is an all-rounder of the very highest quality. His statistics demonstrate this, but Kallis appears to have moved up a level this season. When he thrashed out 53 off 26 balls at Centurion last Friday, Kallis revealed an aspect of his game that he had hitherto concealed. No one ever doubted that he had the ability to murder an attack, but too often he seemed content to play the anchor role and allow others to bat around him.
There is much merit in this, but you always felt that he was not the finished article, that he shied away from the complete dominance that is the hallmark of the great player. It is possible that Kallis has arrived at the point where he can shift up or down a gear effortlessly, and if so South Africa, for all their uncertainties, could still become a great team.
The mental side of this might be revealed against Pakistan. South Africa have been adept at niggling away at teams generally regarded as being mild-mannered, but the question has been what are they like against the big guns?
With the usually placid Sri Lankans prepared to give some back, the past few weeks have had more fizz than might have been expected. Pakistan, it hardly needs to be said, are an entirely more volatile kettle of piranha, quite prepared to nip back nastily.
There’s a lot at stake in this one-day series, a series that could quite possibly play a significant part in the destination of the 2003 world cup itself.