A debacle of sorts ?

27 April 2009

As I write this article, I thought it would appropriate to let my readers know that I am in deep mourning and genuine heartfelt pain. And all of this is parallel to the pain caused by the “Bank Muscat Sponsored” Oman Cricket Team who failed to qualify for the ICC World Cup and were directly relegated to the third tier of ICC World Cricket League. With this fall from grace, not only does the national team lose its status, but at the same time, they lose the various sops and grants provided to them by the ICC. Having not finished among the top ten, Oman loses the ICC grant to the tune of approximately $350,000 and also the other benefits of remaining in the second tier. In addition Oman would have earned the right to play in the Inter-Continental tournament. But with their poor performance in the ICC qualifiers, Oman seems to have lost the whole plot. They’ve dropped down in the rankings to 21, are currently only the 3rd best affiliate/associate member in Asia. What’s next for Oman now? Let’s break it down…

They will now literally face weak but upcoming teams such as Demark, Hongkong, Papua New Guinea and others depending on relegations and promotions. Their road to the ICC Division 2 and the subsequent qualifiers for 2015 will be much harder. Out of a total of eight teams in the ICC Division 3, Oman will have to finish in the top two to be able to qualify for Division 2. Once they qualify for Divison 2, they will then have to finish in the top four teams to be able to book a plane ticket to ICC World Cup Qualifiers. It might look easy as I write this, but all teams are now slowly waking up to professionalism cricket. So far Oman has had the habit of taking small teams very lightly. These very small teams are now regularly playing cricket on turf wickets, conducting regular matches and are short listing world class cricket coaches to guide them. Oman is fast being left behind, and we can only shudder to think of team dropping down to Divison 4. If that happens, the OCC might as well hang up their priceless boots.

So what went wrong for Oman?

On hindsight, the blame cannot be completely placed on the players alone. Everyone, right from the management to the coaches, “technical committee”, “physiotherapist” and the best and experienced players in the team, were responsible. Accusations could be thrown about like wild darts in the dark. Were the players fit? Did they have enough preparations to face teams such as Scotland and Ireland? Did they really think that by going on tours to Srilanka and Thailand would help them master the greener and bouncier pitches of South Africa? It’s a different thing to acclimatize to conditions and a different ball game to get used to certain pitches. This alone was the horrible foresight chosen by the OCC to hone the national team for the qualifiers. Were the technical coaches qualified enough? Was the physiotherapist good enough? These questions are the just the tip of the iceberg that will haunt Oman for many years to come.

They were then sent to a meaningless tournament in the form of the ACC Trophy Challenge 2009 where they managed to win the cup by beating school teams such as Bhutan, Myanmar and Thailand. The team did not even feel ashamed of playing such poor teams made up mainly of kids. An interesting fact to note here is that 80% of the teams playing in that tournament consisted of local players (blood nationals) who were clearly there to learn and improve on their cricket. But Oman? A 100% constituency of deemed nationals who only played for enjoyment rather than a learning curve. Please don’t get me wrong here, for I might be misjudged and as I’ve pointed out “a wild throw of the dart in the dark”, but then you don’t have to be reading this to realize that it was utterly pointless and useless going down to that tournament. Out of this tournament, the only real benefit that the national team gained was to get competitive match practice on turf wickets. Anything else was a sheer waste of time and effort except for the fact that they would be competing in the 2010 ACC Trophy Elite.

If there was a cricket camp for the national team, then certainly it was kept under wraps, for no one hardly heard about the practice sessions. The team traveling to South Africa was not a surprise considering the boardroom politics that go on behind the scenes. Young, enthusiastic and talented players were left behind for the likes of Amit Sampat, Haider Ali, Khalid Rasheed and the unfit Hemin Desai, Syed Tariq Hussein and Zeeshan Siddiqui. Apart from the expensive Tariq Hussein and the reliable Zeeshan, all the other players were not required and had nothing to prove. I’m not saying they aren’t good players, just that they weren’t good enough for such a high caliber tournament. What transpired on the selection process is everyone’s history. I was lucky enough to receive an anonymous email by a reader of omanicricket.com who had the following to say:

Judging from the above mail, the intentions of the selection committee are very clear and biased. Most of the players selected in the national team are either employees of the Selection Board Companies or either have some or the other relation with them. Hemin Desai unfortunately was called up to the squad as a last minute replacement, which was very ill judged because he was not fit to play in South Africa. Yet he was chosen ahead of players who had already attended the training camp. Then again it is not Hemin’s fault. He did what any die hard cricket fan would do, and that is to play.

Oman were the only team with enough golden oldies in the team. The average age of the Omani team stood at 32 comparing to the average age of 24 enjoyed by other teams. Barring Adnan Ilyas, Maqsood Hussein and Rafeeq Balushi, the team’s average age would have been 35 years. Fantastic team playing cricket in a modern era one would notice. Hilarious for others. Cricket is no more a sport where athleticism was not required. In the present day of cricket, a player has to be largely fit and adventurous on the field, and it helps when you’re a lot younger. Sadly Oman continue playing in the dark ages.

As much respect as I have for coach Mazhar Khan and Technical Adviser Jitendar Redkar, it would be unfair not to point out they would have been good at best in the roles of advisors or assistant managers. The role of the coach and a solid technical advisory position should have gone to some top class coach. But then wait, all the money that was poured over by the ICC in the preceding years and the sponsorship gained from BankMuscat was wasted on the tour. There was no need for such a high party of officials to travel with the team to South Africa, but then nevertheless it happened. Once again I could be throwing darts in the dark, but then if a company of Bank Muscat’s caliber could sponsor the national team and it’s expenses, then surely the OCC were well equipped to appoint a renowned or at least an experienced coach for the team! 

Dr. Manjunath is another official who seems to be getting enough access to the team in the role of a trainer. Once again it’s easy to ask, was he required there? Was his role as a trainer a necessity? Ok agreed that he is a doctor and might have been useful as physio or something in that capacity but he wasn’t given that role. To be a trainer, you need to be a good cricket coach and an enthusiastic fatherly figure to the team. A trainer has to be consistent in giving out cricketing advise and helping out players with their fitness and drills. None of those qualities can be transparent in this case.

An omanicricket.com visitor “Mohammed Aslam” was sporting enough to note that many of the players playing in the team were on a “tour”, rather than to actually playing cricket, because they "think that their places are secured permanently in the team."

Another good point to note is that once the Times of Oman newspaper ran out an article on the injury of Vaibhav Wategaonkar and how his injury cast a shadow of doom over the other players, this was immediately picked out as the main excuse for the poor showing of the national team. Is this a one man team? Agreed that Vaibhav is a good batsman who brings stability to the middle order, but why should a team be centered on one player? He got injured, so what?! Get on with your bloody cricket mate.

Another point to note about the Selection committee is the persistent overlooking of actual Omani players’ selection in the team. It is common knowledge that those who play for their blood country are bound to put in greater effort and hard work and would be prepared to “die” for their country. Once these very players are overlooked for deemed nationals, who play for as long as their work permit allows before they go back home, the situation becomes worse for homegrown players. They feel agitated and discouraged and eventually lose interest in the sport. Rafeeq Balushi was the only Omani player selected in the team at the expense of the highly traveled and consistently overlooked Khalid Balushi. Even then Rafeeq did not get a single chance either in the warmup matches, the friendlies and neither the tournament itself. Noteworthy and talented players such as Shaqeel Balushi, Khalid, Mohd Aslam, Sharif Pindook, Ahmed Balushi, Yousuf Rahim Baksh, Younis Mourad, Hanif Balushi and many others were overtly overlooked for far more older and has been players.

Someone said to me the other day, “Abs, if the national team goes abroad, plays so hopelessly and comes back with 80% loss ratio, they might as well take the pure Omanis. They would lose obviously, but the shame would not be as great and the experience of playing abroad on turf wickets would be invaluable.”. I whole-heartedly agreed with him.

Abs.

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