Ian Chappell is belonged to that cricket era, when Australia was
not considered any favorite amongst cricket playing nations. After retirement
from the game he chose a commentating career at Channel 9, which is still
continued. However, it is always his gawky and derogatory comments that have
been letting him down and for that reasons he was banned twice by his parent broadcast
organisation.
After the
Pakistan 3-0 whitewash in Australia his remarks to ask the Cricket Australia
not to invite Pakistan any further until the Asian side raise their
standards significantly and offer some sort of challenge to the Kangaroos were
again "uncalled for and unbecoming." I am not going to justify
the national team performance against Australia in Test series, but what
distastes me is share arrogance and inelegance on behalf of a publicity-starving
commentator, rather any graceful and dignified criticism of a former sportsman.
He also expects
from Pakistan to "play decent cricket in Australia." Surprisingly that
expectation comes from such a person who is responsible for not to let cricket
remained decent and gentlemen' game anymore. As the Australians are globally
blamed for institutionalising sledging in the game and Ian Chappell is
called the pioneer of this indecency. He admits that in his writings, "As
a captain my philosophy is simple between 11:00 am to 6:00 pm there was no time
to be a nice guy."
He was also critical of captain Misbah ul Haq by saying, “A lot of
their (Pakistan cricket team) problems was because they had no leadership.
There was no inspiration from Misbah, so things have got to change in Pakistan”.
Forget if he is ignorant about Misbah ul Haq’ record as a captain of Pakistan,
but he should acknowledge that Misbah is leading a team, which is forced to
play their international cricket on foreign soil. Cricketers of Pakistan are
not aware of home advantage, home crowd and home conditions, while contemporary
statistics show that in the cricket history winning probability while playing
at home has never ever been as strong as it is in recent times; and that is the
truth of modern cricket.
If Chappell looked at the away records of most teams including in
last 10 years he would find more defeats than wins. He should have been aware
that his team managed to win just one series in 10 years, which was against
South Africa in 2014. While in their away tour Australian team faced the
humiliation of whitewash in Test series against Sri Lanka, India, and Pakistan
in UAE and also 5-Oneday series against South Africa only in the last couple of
years.
Misbah ul Haq is right in his column where he writes “If we apply
Chappell comments to Australia, does that mean if they continue to get
whitewashed on the subcontinent on a regular basis then they should not travel
there.”
Interestingly Ian Chappell never played any match in the subcontinent.
And, his record against the subcontinent teams is also not impressive. In 6
innings of four Test, he played against Pakistan he scored 352 runs including a
196 runs inning. While in 15 innings of 9 Test against India he scored just 356
runs, which shows his vulnerability against spin bowling.
Australians always avoid play cricket out of their comfort zone. They
were the first team in the late 1900s that refused to travel Pakistan for
security reasons and played an avid role in making Pakistan a “Sporting Pariah”.
While on the other hand despite terrorism threats from ISIS in Melbourne during
the 2016 Boxing Day Test, Pakistan cricket team never gave any dam concern to enter
into the field. In 1996 Australia cricket team also refused to play World Cup
Group match in Sri Lanka citing the same security reasons, but for knock-out
encounter it had to travel in Lahore only to lose the final against the same
Sri Lanka.
He should be careful and humble in his remarks and not ignore the values of sports while speaks.
By
Naseem Rajput
naseemrajput@hotmail.com
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