Now that the easy-to-loathe Australians are out of the World Twenty20, who cares any more who wins? Suddenly, it feels like one is watching a horse race without any money riding on the outcome. Naturally, patriotism dictates that England must be cheered along but equally logic says that they cannot be taken as serious contenders. They will do remarkably well to reach the semi-finals. There’s loyalty and then there’s lunacy.
Barring the miracle of an English charge for glory, I know who I will be backing. It won’t be the West Indians - although given the way they have been mooching around the country for weeks on end they are hardly going to run out of energy and it would be funny to hear Chris Gayle paying tribute to Sir Allen Stanford’s work in promoting Twenty20 in the Caribbean during a victory speech in front of the ECB Suits at Lord’s on June 21.
Nor will it be the Indians, who don’t need the money or the encouragement to get any more excited about Twenty20 cricket than they are already, or the South Africans, who take the whole thing far too seriously.
A very strong case could be made for the likeable Sri Lankans, who possess the most exotically gifted cricketers in the world and who deserve every good fortune after enduring the traumatic terrorist attack on their team bus in Lahore. However, were they to win there is the very real danger that Sri Lanka’s best players would forsake international cricket in favour of chasing Indian Premier League riches.
So my pick are Pakistan.
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As things stand, Pakistan cricket is in the gravest crisis. The attack on the Sri Lankans effectively condemned Pakistan cricket to pariah status. Inevitably, painfully, Pakistan were removed as co-hosts of the 2011 World Cup and their players barred - by their own government, for their own safety - from taking part in the IPL. Only this week another hotel once frequented by Westerners - this time in Peshawar - was turned to rubble by a massive bomb. No major Test nation will be visiting Pakistan for years to come.
Even before Lahore, Pakistan were feeling isolated, their reputation eroded by numerous scandals, some of which involved two of their finest bowlers, Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif, neither of whom is at the World Twenty20.
Since January 2008, they have taken part in just two Tests (the second of them the one in Lahore that was abandoned amid the gunmen’s bullets) and 19 ODIs. The rustiness was evident in Pakistan’s two warm-up matches and then in their first encounter with England. But come their must-win match against the doughty Dutch, they started to find their feet.
It would be in keeping with their mercurial character if the Pakistanis now began to play with real magic. They have a good record at Twenty20 and are in much the easier Super Eight group. A semi-final spot is a genuine possibility - and then, who knows what?
What a Pakistan victory in this World Twenty20 would do is put its national team back near the centre of the cricketing map. They would once again be a team in demand and when you look at the talent they keep on unearthing that can only be a good thing.
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Even if they couldn’t host tours, other teams would be more willing to play them, either in the Middle East or in England (the ECB has already offered to stage a Pakistan-Australia series next year), and certainly to invite them to tour.
A Pakistan victory would be a wonderful thing, not only for the sake of the game in that benighted country but for the game worldwide.
Cricket needs Pakistan to be regularly sitting at the top table. The head may say South Africa or India will win but the heart says Pakistan.
Australia likely to benefit from staying put
Sadly, the Australians have probably done the right thing by deciding to stay on in England following their early exit from the World Twenty20. While England supporters will be hoping Ricky Ponting and Co go stir-crazy training in Leicester for a week before they are joined by their Test specialists and the Ashes tour proper begins, the Aussie players are more likely to benefit from staying put than rushing back home for a few extra days with their families.
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Apart from anything else, the players and their families have only just gone through counselling sessions to help them cope with being apart for long periods. If their menfolk were to suddenly pitch up again after having been away for only a couple of weeks, before disappearing again a few days later, wives and young children might not necessarily find it helpful.
There is also a theory that sportsmen should not be rewarded for doing badly. Being allowed to slip off for a few days of leave might make failure quite appealing.
England fell into precisely this trap ahead of the last Ashes series in 2006. Then it was an ICC Champions Trophy event in India that provided the build-up and when England were knocked out after the first stage the management decided to allow the players to go home for a few days before moving on to Australia.
Duncan Fletcher defended the decision by saying that the players had trained hard in India, but when the team eventually got to Australia they hardly hit the ground running and Fletcher - rather bizarrely - then claimed that the first match in Canberra “came too early” for them. Steve Harmison, in particular, took time to settle and we all know how he began the series in Brisbane.
Symonds struggling with the new school
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Surely the most encouraging news of the week for Englishmen was the picture of the Australian dressing-room painted by the Andrew Symonds affair. Symonds may have been sent home by the management but by opting to go off and do his own thing - having a drink, watching the rugby in a sports bar - he was sending out a pretty clear message that he thought the team culture stank.
Heavy drinking may have to be a thing of the past for modern professional sports team. But do they have to lack humour and soul? These used to be the traditional hallmarks of successful Aussie cricket XIs. Life was fun on and off the field. Symonds, clearly, finds the new breed of Aussie cricketer dull.
At such a time, thoughts inevitably drift back to the SCG in February when Simon Katich grabbed Michael Clarke by the collar when Clarke suggested the boys might like to sing the team song early so he could slip off to meet his missus. Maybe if Katich had not grabbed him, Symonds would have done.
Symonds’s friends make it clear that since the old guard retired - Shane Warne, Matthew Hayden et al - he has searched in vain for companionship. “He did tell me that he needs to surround himself with people he can relate to ... obviously the Australian team environment no longer offers that,” said Symonds’s manager.
Jimmy Maher, a former team-mate, concurred, saying that no one in the Australian team seemed to want to go out for a drink with Symonds, preferring to stay in their rooms and play with their Xboxes.
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Doesn’t someone in management need to lighten up? Unfortunately Ricky Ponting, as someone who had his own issues with alcohol as a youngster, may not be in a position to do that. Australia are in the early stages of what is due to be a four-month stay in England. It could be a long old tour.
The list: left-arm quicks in the World Twenty20 Super Eights
1 Yusuf Abdulla (South Africa)
2 Mohammad Aamer (Pakistan)
3 Wayne Parnell (South Africa)
4 Irfan Pathan (India)
5 Ryan Sidebottom (England)
6 RP Singh (India)
7 Sohail Tanvir (Pakistan)
8 Isuru Udana (Sri Lanka)
9 Regan West (Ireland)
10 Zaheer Khan (India)