da heads bet： Up against a depleted Pakistan will be an upbeat Sri Lankan side that’s been steamrolling opponentsover the last few months, including rolling West Indies over for 80 threedays’ back.
da brdice： The Preview by Siddhartha Vaidyanathan in Jaipur16-Oct-2006
Pakistan are in disarray as Shoaib Akhtar heads home after testing positive in a dope test © Getty Images
By the time you read this, more turbulence might have engulfed thePakistan team and their crucial opening game of the Champions Trophy,against Sri Lanka at Jaipur, may end up as a mere footnote. Such is theircombustibility levels that it seems to be only a matter of time beforeanother fire ignites around Pakistan cricket. What’s unique about theteam, though, is that happenings off the field seem to rarely worry themand they invariably discover additional mental steel when expected tocrack.Interestingly Pakistan were bystanders in the last major instance when aplayer was withdrawn from a tournament for testing positive for bannedsubstances. News of Shane Warne’s diuretic travails broke just a few hoursbefore Australia’s World Cup opener against Pakistan at Johannesburg and, with a couple of players ruled out with injury, not many gavethem a chance. Few hours into the game and a whirlwind hundred from AndrewSymonds had set the tone for one of the most emphatic World Cup triumphsever.Pakistan will need to find similar inspiration. As things stand at themoment, they have 12 players to choose from for tomorrow’s game, if youdiscount Waqar Younis, the bowling coach, and Rameez Raja, the formeropening batsman who’s here as a commentator. They’re already without theirfirst-choice captain – who’s also been their most influential player inrecent times; two of their premier fast bowlers, who in all probabilitymight have shared the new ball, would have might have already reached homebefore the toss; and the concern over the openers continues. Up againstthem will be an upbeat Sri Lankan side that’s been steamrolling opponentsover the last few months, including rolling West Indies over for 80 threedays’ back.Mahela Jaywardene, though expressing disappointment at the turn of events,was taking nothing lightly. “At times when teams have such problems theycome hard at you, and we have played Pakistan quite a few times to realisethat and we are taking the game as important for us as it was yesterday,”he said on the even of the game. “I don’t know the whole extent of theevents, but it’s disappointing. We haven’t played against Shoaib for quitesome time because he was injured. We wanted to take that challenge and seehow we can come about it. So from a cricketing point of view, it’s bitdisappointing.”Sri Lanka start off red-hot favourites. The pitch – the same one whereDwayne Bravo and Corey Collymore nipped and tucked – will be to theirbowlers’ liking. If they end up bowling second, with the pitch tending toget slow and low, their spinners will be more than a handful. They’vereeled off three emphatic wins and the manner in which they mauled WestIndies wouldn’t be lost on Pakistan, who’re bound to be rusty without muchcricket.”You can see it as a disadvantage and also as an advantage,” said BobWoolmer, the Pakistan coach, when asked about lack of match practice.”We’ll be fresh and ready to go. Sri Lanka will be traveling, playing ondifferent surfaces and need to get used to this. You can see it as a glasshalf full or half empty. I’ll like to see it as a glass half full.”Considering the events of the last 24 hours, one can probably also see itas a glass ready to shatter. Towards the end of the press conference,Younis couldn’t but smile when a reporter mistakenly addressed him asYousuf. It was no doubt funny but in its own way it encapsulated theuncertainty that surrounds Pakistan. When unsure about the next step,might as well laugh.Teams (likely)Pakistan 1 Imran Farhat, 2 Mohammad Hafeez, 3 Shoaib Malik, 4Mohammad Yousuf, 5 Younis Khan (capt), 6 Shahid Afridi, 7 Abdul Razzaq, 8Kamran Akmal (wk), 9 Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, 10 Rao Iftikhar Anjum, 11 UmarGulSri Lanka 1 Upul Tharanga, 2 Sanath Jayasuriya, 3 MahelaJayawardene (capt), 4 Kumar Sangakkara (wk), 5 Marvan Atapattu, 6Tillakaratne Dilshan, 7 Farveez Maharoof, 8 Chaminda Vaas, 9 MuttiahMuralitharan, 10 Lasith Malinga, 11 Dilhara Fernando.
