Pakistan's science fiction: India's opening reality

To compare Pakistan to Abhishek Sharma now is like comparing two cans on a string to a smart phone that talks to aliens.

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There was a time when Abhishek Sharma and the Pakistan team had a similar strike rate. That sounds like a Sci-Fi novel from the 1950s now. The concept is so alien. How could Abhishek Sharma, pin-up boy for the intent merchants, be anything like Pakistan, a nation of anchors, who dream of catch up innings?

But until 2024, they had similar strike rates. Sure, Abhishek was still finding his voice, and Pakistan is an entire nation of people from various kinds of backgrounds. But at one stage, they were in their own way comparable.

To compare Pakistan to Abhishek Sharma now is like comparing two cans on a string to a smart phone that talks to aliens. They are not the same.

They both technically play T20 cricket, but one is running through the fields picking up daisies, and the other is in a dystopian apocalypse where grass is illegal.

Pakistan went really hard today, and Abhishek went slow for him. And it was still like watching a little pony go up against a raging stallion.

Of course, it is completely unfair to compare one player to an entire team. We know that, but we aren’t doing it to say, “Why don’t Pakistan play like 11 Abhishek Sharmas?(though the first team who does that is going to be more fun than a bag of kittens)”. But what Sharma shows is the level teams need to find players.

And he hasn’t always been this. The young, unsure model was playing attacking shots less than 30% of the time, while the Pakistan team was up nearer to forty. Then - and this is a little wild - Pakistan actually started whacking slightly less. And Sharma doubled his intent.

That shows what kind of a wild, crazy guy he has become. But as T20 cricket has become a place of violent maximums, Pakistan have eased off. That is what we are really talking about.

This is a period of time where we expect more urgency. Instead, Pakistan are going backwards.