When the world ends and the next generation of species reads about the bygone times, they will possibly have a subject on everything India and Pakistan went through as nations.
The bloodied partition. The political differences. The nature of leaders. War. Cricket. Terrorism, etc.
However, there could be a chapter, small or big not known yet, where they would read about how Pakistan tried to copy what India did and perhaps succeeded or did not succeed in it.
That chapter might include details of how Pakistan went the homegrown way in picking their cricketing support staff by roping in Misbah-Ul-Haq as head coach and Waqar Younis as bowling coach, exactly like how India had Ravi Shastri at the helm in India and Bharat Arun heading the bowling department at the same time.
It isn’t mere coincidence that such a situation is upon us in world cricket. Pakistan in the past have had thoughts of handing over the U-19 reigns to Younis Khan, ala Rahul Dravid in India, but that did not pan out as planned.
But now that these appointments have been confirmed, it remains to be seen if they look to ape anything else from India’s successful method into their system? Will Misbah get in the infamous yo-yo test? If so, will the players be willing to give up as much as they might have to meet the standards of the test?
Can he over a period of time help ensure Pakistan play more at home? As a double role of also being a chief selector help develop separate teams for Test matches and limited-overs cricket?
Can he help revamp Pakistan’s domestic structure? the pay structure?
Will Pakistan’s top players play high-intensity cricket for some time and get adequate rest at others, like India’s gunn players do? That and many other aspects to the appointment remains to be seen.
What Misbah’s appointment does, however, is it allows an opportunity for Pakistan to try and change its culture- an aspect to their cricket which several coaches in the past have tried, but not fully succeeded.
Misbah, however, is different. Perhaps, none better than him understands every decision taken by the authorities. None better knows how to deal with it. But can he insulate the players from it and get them performing?
For all of India's administrative issues and it’s never-ending politics (there is still no one clear BCCI, it must be remembered), the team has remained remarkably consistent across all formats and that is perhaps due to the fact that the likes of Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni etc haven’t allowed external pressure to enter the players mind.
What India have also done well for a large part is they have remained united as a side. With Pakistan, when they don’t face administrative issues they face infighting issues. Issues of players abusing one another. Of players not training as hard as they should and that has invariably shown in the performance.
India, however, even in the most tumultuous dressing room environment, have shown they remain unaffected by issues of such kind. The Champions Trophy of 2017 being the best example.
This, thereby, will be Misbah’s biggest challenge above all- getting Pakistan to play a team, that is headed in one direction. A direction to win, to succeed, to become a model side for future generations. Can he make Pakistan a better team temperamentally so that the technique takes care of itself?
It is a question whose answer we will know soon.
