Unpredictable and mercurial to a fault, Babar and his men have it all to do once again with their World Cup hanging in the balance
Shashank Kishore03-Nov-2023Babar Azam had just hit a picture-perfect cover drive off Usama Mir. It was beautiful. His picking of the length, reading of the wrong’un and his footwork that detonated the potential the ball had to fizz back in – all top notch. Babar had not just smothered the spin, but had also gracefully driven it with oodles of love and care.Babar held his pose for a few seconds, seemingly happy with his trail of biomechanics that went into the shot – head position, back lift, footwork, follow-through – but something seemed off. He gestured to someone in the side net. It seemed as if he requested them to begin bowling after he had finished playing his shot. Perhaps it’s something Babar is unlikely to remember much later, but it gave you a peek into his mind space at that very moment.Why was it such a big deal? Why would he stop someone from running in to bowl at the side net when it wasn’t directly affecting him? Babar wasn’t getting that feel. The sound of the ball hitting the middle was being camouflaged by Ifthikhar Ahmed’s whackathon in the side net. It meant Babar couldn’t quite gauge how much he’d middled it.Related
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This was by no means Babar being fussy about a trivial issue. It merely reiterated his drive towards perfection. Getting that perfect shot in, just like a wildlife photographer would, sometimes after waiting for hours, maybe even days, for that perfect capture in the wild. Here, Babar seemed as if he wanted to perfect that moment and the sound of ball hitting the middle – no, actually music – was very much a part of that feel.From the outside, it may appear as if Babar is under immense scrutiny. The board has more or less thrown him under the bus through a terse statement that made it seem as if the onus was all Babar’s to accept after being given everything he had wanted. This is believed to have caused a few rumblings of discontent within the group. But then, what’s new? These have all been par for the course, especially when the team has been on a downward spiral. Chatter around favouritism and “conflict of interest” led to chief selector Inzamam-ul-Haq resigning even before the tournament truly entered Pakistan territory.You’d think there was much weighing on him. Yet, none of it really showed at that very moment when he was simply keen on sharpening his axe and getting those “perfect shots” in at training on a hot day. It didn’t seem like last-minute cramping before an exam, but a mere reiteration that he was doing most things right. In cricketing parlance, this was as process-driven as “process” can get.But, of course, Babar isn’t naive to understand runs are the only currency one is judged by, and they haven’t quite come with the kind of regularity like he would’ve liked. They haven’t elicited the same feel. But, perhaps, he can go to sleep on Friday in Bengaluru knowing he’s given himself the best possible chance to succeed, in one of the best batting surfaces in India against a wounded attack that is struggling to put 11 men on the park in a game Pakistan simply have to win to stay alive.Babar’s net session – one of methods and unwavering concentration – was simply a mirror image of the session at large. Haris Rauf was bowling inside an empty net, bounding in to hit the sponge markers placed on top of middle and off stump. The coaches weren’t pleased with him simply hitting hard lengths. He was mandated to hit the stumps with regularity. At a venue like Bengaluru, where the ball travels, merely bowling short is no guarantee to success. He was targeting to be fuller, but not so full that he gets hit on the up. It was the “in-between” lengths that he was working on.Four years ago, Babar Azam’s brilliant hundred against New Zealand kept Pakistan in the running to make the semi-finals•Alex Davidson/Getty ImagesElsewhere, Mohammad Rizwan took on the short stuff with Grant Bradburn hurling deliveries at pace with the side-arm, but when he wanted it to rise further, Pakistan found a quick fix. Morne Morkel, who made a career, and a great one at that, of roughing up batters with bounce, found his mojo as he steamed in to take full control of a 30-minute one-on-one with Rizwan. Later, Fakhar Zaman was put through a similar test against rising deliveries. By then, news had trickled in that New Zealand had brought in Kyle Jamieson for the injured Matt Henry. Even if the Pakistan team management wasn’t privy to that bit of information just yet, it was a more than productive mini-session that was going to prepare them for Jamieson should he play.The session stripped off everything around the side – the speculation, rumblings around WhatsApp calls going unanswered and messages leaked from within and outside – was simply one of preparing in the best way that they could while blocking the external noise, even if only for that moment. It’s easier said than done to train yourself that way, because when you’re outings are largely limited to just the stadiums and hotels owing to security considerations, players can at times look for solace and comfort in the very things they’re told to avoid or claim to not pay heed to – the digital clutter.The one thing that has never ceased to leave them is the ‘mercurial’ and ‘unpredictable’ tag which elicits a proper throwback to 1992. Similar parallels were drawn four years ago when Pakistan entered a must-win against New Zealand. Babar was there to steer them home that evening in Birmingham. All of Pakistan will want Babar to do a repeat in Bengaluru for it’ll mean they would’ve gone from living on the brink to forcing their way back in from nowhere ‘the Pakistan way’
