I am not noble when it comes to watching sport. I don’t enjoy sportsmanship when it extends beyond basic human decency. I don’t enjoy world-class performances anywhere near as much as I should do when they come from opposing teams’ players. I despise losing, whether in a glorious defeat or a crushing humiliation. So it feels odd for me to write, with complete sincerity, that I am glad England were beaten by Pakistan.
As supporters, we create our own narratives when it comes to the fortunes of our team; every victory is a triumph of virtue and wonder over wickedness and evil, every defeat a dark day for humanity. Supporting a sporting team is an activity which brings out our most partisan, one-eyed, ideological sides, and it’s all the more glorious for doing so, keeping these less pleasant parts of our personalities fenced into a relatively unimportant zone. But when these narratives are challenged or disrupted, we can’t see the game in quite the same way ever again. For example; it’s hard to keep in mind, when watching Alastair Cook grind out another stoic, brutalist masterpiece, or Jimmy Anderson making the ball move through the air with such control and precision that it borders on the supernatural, that England are the bad guys. Whether it’s the background hum of colonial guilt, or the presently deafening sound of the Big Three takeover, England and the ECB are not a force for good in the world game. It’s too rich, too powerful and too entitled. An England win is a defeat for the world game.
Conversely, one of the absolute wonders of global cricket is the story of the Pakistan national team. Unable to play in their home country in the light of the terrorist threat, barred from the most lucrative cricketing competition in existence, and the small inconvenience of a deep-rooted and long-lasting rivalry with the world’s most powerful cricketing nation, the appearance of a Pakistan team on a pitch is a success in itself. The fact that they have reached number two in the world rankings on a budget a fraction the size of the ECB and the BCCI’s is a victory for the underdog, and an underdog who has been kicked and underfed for far, far too long by those nations dining at the sport’s top table. Whilst Adil Rashid is an intensely likeable cricketer, the difference in coaching trajectories between himself and his opposite number Yasir Shah is a neat summation of the resources available to both nations. From a young age Rashid worked extensively with Terry Jenner, the former Australian Test leg-spinner and personal coach of Shane Warne, who Warne credits with introducing the lethal snap of the wrist that gave him such prodigious turn. Conversely, Shah learned his art by watching Warne bowl on YouTube.
Of course, the reason that these huge injustices (for that is what the Big Three takeover represents, an enormous injustice) continue in our game is because you don’t get 30’000 people in a stadium to watch administration negotiations, and because the greater sense of injustice can come from the actual sport. England were around 30 minutes from winning the first Test, on the deadest of pitches; they were 30-odd balls from saving the second Test; the less said about the third Test the better. If those first two matches had gone the other way, then England would be flying home with a 1-1 draw, and they would be rightly delighted. One can feel that that result has been cruelly snatched away from England by a wicked combination of the setting sun and Adil Rashid’s adrenaline rush, and it wouldn’t take a huge leap of logic to say England deserved to win, and to paint Pakistan as lucky, as bullies taunting the tourists in this unfamiliar, unforgiving environment.
They aren’t lucky. This Pakistan team is the best kept secret in international sport. Forget all the cloak-and-dagger xenophobia which follows the team around, in the never-ending labelling of these players as ‘mercurial’, this is a group of likeable, talented players who are at the absolute peak of the game. And that is in spite of every one of the obstacles put in front of them. So when Wahab Riaz rips through your team’s middle order, or when Younis Khan is batting for the entire working week without breaking sweat, just take a moment and consider the bigger picture. Seeing Pakistan win against England was the best thing that could have happened on this tour.
