Baithak

I’m a bit late on this (college and the heat, as always, the reasons) but I expect you’ll already have heard about the news of Shoaib Malik being appointed Pakistan captain.

The official yada, yada formalities were completed at a press conference at the Gadaffi on Thursday, in which we were told that the appointment has been made till December of this year.
Dawn has this photo of him in their report, dressed in his Pakistan blazer and tie, looking all prim and proper.

Its always interesting to picture-read. What does the smile tell you? What does it translate as?

Happiness? Definitely (he did, of course, talk about how he felt "honored" and "thrilled" to get the job) but the smile, I can’t help but feel, is as much a reflection of happiness as it is of self-belief.

"I’m confident all the players will support and co-operate with me",  he told reporters in response to questions about how his team mates may respond.

As Osman Samiuddin notes too, that question of how his team mates will respond to his appointment, is going to be one of the keys to how well he can do this job.

Comparisons with Graeme Smith have been pretty widespread in discussions about Malik’s appointment, and contrary to most of the horses for courses comparisons which are a frequent feature of arm chair cricket discussions, this particular one has some weight to it.

Smith, like Malik, was given over the reigns after his side had just crashed out of the World Cup. Like Malik, Smith too, had in the team he was given to lead, other players which may have been contenders and/or aspirants for the job. And crucially, both of the them, when given the captaincy, had yet to fully arrive at the international stage as players in their individual capacity.

It would be inaccurate to say they hadn’t establish their places in the side. Smith may not have been part of the initial World Cup squad SA picked four years ago (he only made it after Rhodes was sidelined due to a finger injury), but his test place was never in doubt, having scored a mammoth hundred against Pakistan earlier that season.

Malik too, similarly, has though, only just become a non-performing regular in the test side, has a one-day record that in last two to three years is as consistent as any player in the Pakistan side. But there is a difference here that should be noted.

I’m not saying that both Smith and Malik hadn’t become regulars in the team where they were appointment skipper; both of them, in some capacity had, but well and truly arriving on the international stage is another thing entirely.

Later in the same year, when Smith led SA on their tour to England, and scored back-to-back double hundreds in the test series, that’s when he fully arrived. Smith’s own batting heroics have been far less consistent since then, but that big start first up had taken care of any rebellions senior team mates aspiring for the his job might have staged against his appointment.

Not to say there were any in the South African team at the time, but just making a point. That’s what Malik needs to do too. The sooner he is able to deliver an innings like that, the sooner he is able to fully arrive, the easier will it become for his team mates to see why he is the best man of the job at the time, and the more readily will they, in turn, begin to function affectively under his leadership.

Of course it is not going to be simply about performing well with the bat for Malik; man-management and diplomacy will be crucial skills for Malik to have, but if the runs keep coming, they’ll certainly make the man-management part of the job thing easier.

Just ask Inzi. No one dared question his leadership when his form was rampant. Its not like his deficiencies as a leader had magically disappeared in such times, but they were less easily remembered. Few knew the Inzi who had allowed sides to claw back from hopeless positions by not being ruthless enough all the time, when the runs of his bat and Pakistan’s victories (luckily for us despite his tactical blunders) were the bigger realities.

Fast forward to present times, those tactical blunders are still the same as before, but with the cushion of his own form and the team’s success rate not there to fall back on, few people can now see any good that ever come out of his leadership.

Nothing, in other words, succeeds like success. Malik’s tactical nous and presence of mind, fortunately for him, are his natural areas of strength, so the only thing he needs is to do, for the moment at least, is get runs. A lots of them. The rest, can pretty much, take its due course. Still, I don’t suppose it will be easy, the pressure, for one would be immense, but I wish him luck all the same.

Heck, if Kamran Abbasi can see the light at the end of the tunnel here, I just can’t stay behind. Lets make this an official prayer than, shall we? All raise your hands and say, ‘oh god, please, make this a start of better things ahead’. Amen. Now I shall hover off to bed.