Tie or more correctly Vie

Time and again and that too for some years and not months Pakistan is being humiliated but we are neither pushed nor concerned otherwise we had learnt lesson and improved upon since jolted for the first time but we are not at all conscious of our national prestige which is jolted as and when we are defeated by juniors.  Have we forgotten the 1^st bitter taste that Bangladesh though newly born in cricket world had inflicted us when Bengalis defeated us in World Cup which is the most prestigious cricket event in the history of the game on the face of earth? Just last night Ireland which is yet to be ranked as a fully fledged cricket playing nation duly ranked by ICC in Test matches nearly defeated Pakistan in 1^st One Day it played against seasoned and mighty Pakistan which had once upon a  time had even lifted World Cup.

Pakistan and Ireland played 1^st ODI at Clontarf where win for Ireland was very much in sight and we despite our all out efforts hardly it could be avoided it but unluckily for Ireland its star batsman Kevin O’Brien could manage to score a boundary only on the last ball of the game but if he had hit the second sixer of the last over then it had won the match instead of tying the same. Pakistan scored 266 runs after losing 5 wickets but due to introduction of Duckworth-Lewis method the target was refixed for Ireland which had to score 276 runs to win the match but as the bad luck had it for them it netted 275 instead running short by just 1 run otherwise Ireland had won the well contested match. As a matter of fact Ireland which as per ICC has earned a place in One Day with only 282 points and is rated as low as 40 as against Pakistan capturing 3890 points and ranked at 105 is no match to our team but yet they gave such a tough time to us that perhaps even our captain Misbah ul Haq too would have been doubtful to end the match is draw what to talk of defeating them and winning the match.

Do not forget that it is the same country which defeated us in World Cup in a manner that we could not move to next step of Super Eights though we had boasted to left the Cup but alas such an inexperienced raw Irish sent us back home instead. Incidentally at that point of time our team had so many captains namely Younus Khan, Shoaib Malik, Mohamamd Yousuf and Inzamaul Haq who very shamefully scored zero, 9, 14 and 1 respectively and hence they by their poor batting performance defamed the nation as a whole but none punished anyone of them whatsoever which I protest and regret. What lesson did we learn from them when they rebuked us alike? Who knows who wins the second ODI but the fact remains that there are quite vivid chances that Irish again force us to eat nothing but dust unless and until we wake up and beat them with very big margin to wash out the notion that Pakistan is heading towards decline which was very clearly noticed in South Africa just a few months earlier this very year.

Irish team by its performance against Pakistan has proved that it is better team than us but at the same time I very sincerely wish and pray that we beat Ireland in the 2^nd ODI to regain our name and fame which we have lost.

Iqbal Hadi Zaidi / Kuwait