Inzamam is not the philosopher like Mike Brearley or as aggressive and impetuous as Ricky Ponting or as shrewd as Stephen Fleming but still he has done his bit.Inzamam-ul-Haq makes an unusual choice for the captaincy. Talk of Pakistan cricket and the image that floods the mind's eye immediately is of a village gale force. Unpredictability like fire makes for the strongest imagery, even beating that of batsmen with wrists of steel playing instinctively and to entertain. But now one thought of Inzamam as captain until the selectors and PCB ran out of choices. Inzamam subsequently changed all that. For the first time Inzamam was required at his matured best. The complete cricketer who may have been really satisfied if he had been able to score a hundred in every innings he had played in Tests.
He always set high standards for himself and by the time Javed Miandad, Saleem Malik, Saeed Anwar and Ijaz Ahmed were out of international cricket and with people like Mohammad Yousuf and Younis Khan left as his most talented lieutenants, Inzamam started to bat without his causal approach. He wasn't the Inzamam known to world cricket, a man filled with lazy elegance.
From 2002 until now, he has led Pakistan from the front. In spite of his outstanding batting deeds, his captaincy was always on the rack. There were people, who are still standing up and sloganeering against Inzamam the captain. He has done enough to keep them quiet when it comes to his amazing ability with the bat but due to the soft, lazy looks and his inability to converse fervently with his subordinates and colleagues he has often been subjected to relentless criticism.
One must add here, Inzamam is not the philosopher like Mike Brearley or as aggressive and impetuous as Ricky Ponting or as shrewd as Stephen Fleming but still he has done his bit. One must not forget that Pakistan cricket was absolutely parched with aces like Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, and Saeed Anwar, Rashid Latif, Moin Khan and the rest leaving almost simultaneously. Inzamam was left alone and he had a truck load of responsibility to put cricket back on track. Was he really capable of doing that? There was an air of skepticism, one that of uncertainty. Inzamam needed to rise to the occasion.
Inzamam came to the captaincy scaffold after Rashid Latif suffered from his typical 'frustration blues'. Very few people know that Inzamam was immensely patient when it came to the captaincy. He had been offered to take over as the country's captain after Moin Khan had fallen apart with the Lieutenant General Tauqir Zia run PCB at the conclusion of Pakistan's tour to New Zealand in 2001.Inzamam at that juncture thought he wasn't ready and he wanted to achieve more with the bat and was not eager to let distractions impede his growth. Waqar Younis took over, even Azhar Mahmood was considered. Inzamam was aloof, juggling the bat in his hand and biding his time.
To some, he was shrewd enough to peek into the future. He wasn't ready to sacrifice his career with team politics rampant during 2003. Nevertheless, as Rashid Latif quit in between the Pakistan-South Africa series in 2003-04, Inzamam had to take over.
More than the unusual nature of the appointment, it was the unusual nature of the man which could make his choice a surprising one. When he was made Pakistan's captain, the selectors and the PCB were not left with much options -- Mohammad Yousuf (then Yousuf Youhana) was too laid back and humble and Younis Khan was busy rejuvenating his fledgling career. Moin Khan was not the administration's premier choice and was also making a comeback. His return to the team was also largely dependent upon Inzamam's future.
When Inzamam took over, there were ex-colleagues thinking how easily distracted he could become when batting or fielding. There were instances when captains had to yell at him when the ball headed in his direction. For such an easy going cricketer, captaincy could be a quaint challenge. Still, Inzamam was no stranger to the job. His stint at Hamilton against New Zealand when Moin opted out due to a niggling knee injury had ended in a disaster. Inzamam was expected to goad an unfashionable team, a team that had inexperienced cricketers.
The dressing room view was different. Most of the young cricketers appreciated the leadership qualities of their soft-spoken captain who led them valiantly against India in India in 2004-05. Inzamam subsequently showed that his feet remained on the ground when it came to leading Pakistan. He has very few words to say but then he has gone through life competing against the internal politics, administrative wrangles and player-power and so an economy of words is understandable. Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Moin Khan and Rashid Latif were from the top drawer, all ahead of him, as he was trying to make an impact as the main force in Pakistan's often inconsistent pecking order.
Since World Cup 1992, Inzamam has been one of the cogs in the wheel of Pakistan cricket. Writers always thought of him as the work horse, coming on to relieve Javed Miandad and Saleem Malik, staying on to provide middle order resistance. The laconic Inzamam was actually more than a mere workhorse.
An intelligent purveyor of quality strokes, he was also a brutal destroyer. He was at times a cynical battering ram. Eleven times he was penalised for breach of discipline, the last one being at the Oval as he rammed into Darrell Hair. A high-quality rhythm batsman Inzamam sometimes seemed to brutalise batting.
Sparing as he is in the use of the words, he may even seem to make things worse by never attempting to explain himself. He is truly deserving of the title of the strong and silent man of Pakistan's batting, although it is quite possible, the critics will remember him as a silent slayer of top bowling; one hell of a batsman he has been.
Why didn't Inzamam achieve world fame until very late in his career? The truth is that someone who has always lived in the shadow of more glamorous colleagues in any cricket team may find their own ways to assert themselves. And when you are one in the pack, and also relatively inconsistent and not fulfilling what the actual talent suggests, opportunities present themselves far less frequently.
But, in terms of runs, Inzamam has done so well as to stir everyone with his contribution over the years. A tally in the vicinity of nine thousand runs in Tests and almost twelve thousand in One-day Internationals clearly indicates that he has been a great batsman. He got many runs with his cleverness and unprecedented talent more than brute force. Maybe, that is why he has survived so long as to become captaincy material. The thinking, amazingly talented even less consistent batsman is guaranteed career longevity.
There must be something of a paradox in his approach to the game. The debate has been raging in Pakistan over who should be in the party to South Africa and the World Cup 2007. While the popular line of thinking has been to pick a dogged opener on the premise that such batsmen should do well in South Africa, others are pleading that Imran Farhat and Mohammad Hafeez have done the job effectively, though inconsistently and so why pick a naÔve new dogged orthodox batsman for the sake of conventionalism.
Truly, due to a complete absence of bench strength, the selectors' job is quite easy. They have nothing much in store, not even a high quality orthodox batsman to open Pakistan's innings in Tests in South Africa; that's the dilemma leaving the onus of rebuilding the innings on Mohammad Yousuf, Younis Khan and Inzamam-ul-Haq. And now Inzamam has a say not only in who is to be picked. He has to run the batting himself.
Yousuf and Inzamam are the duo who can do the most on bouncy pitches in South Africa. In that sense, Inzamam's position as captain is unenviable. This is no simple assignment although the most challenging time may come only in the World Cup. The two, Yousuf and Inzamam, have taken a very major share of the workload. They are not the ones complaining of the acute fatigue syndrome. They will have their work cut out. More so Inzamam with his batting on the wane will have an extra-load of captaincy worries to top all demands on what is certain to be an arduous tour.
Inzamam will be needed to explore the finer facets of captaincy in South Africa and then taking them to the World Cup in the West Indies. Since the arrival of Bob Woolmer Inzamam was able to form a compatible team running Pakistan cricket dogmatically. There were instances when the environment was stirred. Until Shaharyar Khan was at the helm, Inzamam's future as captain was absolutely secured but once he left there were interruptions and tribulations in between.
At one point of time Inzamam was set to lose Pakistan's captaincy. He had been banned after playing as the main tool in forfeiture of the Oval Test and Younis Khan, his much famed deputy, was set to take the team to India for the ICC Champions Trophy.
Ironically, as it so frequently happens, there was a tangle that resulted in Younis Khan declining to lead Pakistan to India. Younis then had come up as a crafty, impressive, intelligent and effervescent stand-in captain for Inzamam. Nevertheless, after all the drama that saw Younis being removed and then re-installed and Shaharyar Khan tendering his resignation, Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif testing positive for Nandrolone, a contraband drug, and Pakistan losing miserably to New Zealand and South Africa, Younis's future as Inzamam's natural heir nose-dived to see the latter re-emerging as a compulsive choice at least until the World Cup 2007.
With Dr Nasim Ashraf in place and Inzamam not that close to him, the way he was to Shaharyar Khan it seems that he'll need an extra bit on the field, winning the series in South Africa to ensure that he lasts longer than expected, come what may in the World Cup. At the moment, it seems Inzamam's is Pakistan's only choice, or the best possible option, howsoever one puts it. It will, anyway be an arduous task. Better it will be for Pakistan to have Inzamam a consistent batsman rather than Inzamam a moderately successful captain.
And for Inzamam personally World Cup 2007 should be his swansong. He has been Pakistan's greatest batsman. He needs to bow with grace preferably with the glittering trophy, that at the moment, considering Pakistan's unpredictability, lack of bench strength and resource looks a far cry.
One feels, it would indeed be great if Inzamam follows the likes of Damien Martyn, Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath. Not that Inzamam the batsman is finished but he needs to change the trend -- legends in Pakistan have mostly been axed or shown the door, very few have gone with grace. And Inzamam is too good a cricketer to be asked to leave. He is the one who still has it in him but it seems he is treading slowly and steadily towards an end; let it be peaceful and equally graceful.
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