Indian commentators, mostly former star players, were discussing the possible outcome of the match with their Pakistani counterparts on the leading Indian TV stations in the evening prior to the Pakistan-India ICC Championship match at Oval. The Indians were proud and condescending. Some like Harbhajan Singh were seen teasing and taunting the Pakistanis as they said India would simply blow Pakistan away as they did in the opening game that it had won by a huge margin of 124 runs.
But then it was India that was blown away instead. Pakistan beat the Indians by a staggering margin of 180 runs. The victory humiliated the Indians and buried their pride in the dust. Their disappointment was particularly great because they had everything ready for partying and they thought there was little to discuss about the match because playing Pakistan in the final at Oval would be going through the motions and the trophy was theirs already.
Respected ex-Indian cricket stars such as Saurav Ganguli and Rahul Dravid were on some of these shows. They were not as despicable as Harbhajan but they too were not prepared to give the Pakistanis much chance. Former Pakistan fast bowler and now a cricket commentator Sikander Bakht made a losing case with these ex-Indian players that the Oval match would be a new one and therefore, both teams would be given a 50/50 chance of winning. The Indians laughed him out and gave India a 70 per cent chance of winning but with their body language, a 100 per cent for India.
The Indians went to Oval with a better track record to win the final. In fact, with England, it was a team that was likely to win. In contrast, Pakistan entered the tournament two positions behind Bangladesh at number 8 ranked team, the lowest among the participants. It made the 8th rank with some help of the ICC with scheduling of the international matches. And when India beat it in the league match that was the first for both the teams, the Pakistanis did not even look like deserving their lowly 8th rank.
Therefore, it was not just the Indians; their former cricketers and their media were overly confident with their chances. The British, the Australians and the media sans the Pakistani media were confident that India would lift the Trophy that they had won the last time when it was played in England in 2013 by beating England in the final by 5 runs. The Pakistani media, overawed by the confidence of all sides concerned for India, were also nervous about their chances.
It is a mystery of sorts why the Pakistanis were underestimated for winning the Trophy in the way they were just because of their first defeat at the hands of the Indians. They thereafter beat on the trot, South Africa, the number one rated team going to the Championship, Sri Lanka that had beaten India, and the tournament's co-favourite England that had entered the semifinal match against them, undefeated. Pakistan devastated England bowling them out for a meagre 211 and then chased it with just 2 wickets down and 12.1 overs to spare.
Pakistan's bowlers were devastating against South Africa too, restricting them to 219/8. It showed great potential in batting after their bowlers again proved its brilliance against Sri Lanka, bowling the team out for 236. It then came back from 137 for 6 to defeat Sri Lanka. Therefore, going to the final, there was no reason for the Indians to consider the final as a formality and for the media sans the Pakistanis to follow suit.
In fact, the Pakistanis went to Oval clearly as the better bowling side and and the Indians with the better batting side with Kohli, Sharma and Dhawan with outstanding performances with the bat. The Indians' first mistake, apart from the confidence in their humungous ego, was Captain Kohli's decision to bowl after winning the toss. They thus played against their strength because if they believed they had the best batsmen, they should have batted first and let their batsmen score a total to put the game beyond the Pakistanis who were known to tilt under pressure.
Thus instead of backing their strength, they played their weaker hand, namely bowling, against what they considered Pakistan's weaker hand, their batting. Perhaps, their overconfidence in their batting strength led them to take the decision to send Pakistan to bat that Ganguli underlined after Pakistan had made 338. Ganguli did not consider the total at all intimidating and reminding the viewers that with Kohli, Sharma and Dhawan in the batting lineup, the Indians had no reason to be seriously worried.
In fact, the Champion's Trophy 2017 underlined that the competition at the highest level of cricket in the 50/50 format has narrowed down considerably. On its day, any team could beat any other that the so-called experts who commentated on the Championship games and wrote on it failed to grasp. Thus Pakistan not just beat India that they thought would take the Trophy easily because they considered Pakistan weak; they beat India by a humungous margin of 180 runs, the biggest defeat ever in an ICC tournament final. Because it was Pakistan's day.
These commentators and writers had not given the Sri Lankans any hope of doing anything in the tournament. Then, their batsmen chased down India's 323 with consummate skill and ease with just 3 wickets down and still these writers and commentators did not see what every team in the tournament was capable of achieving on its day. And that mindset was the reason why they made such a mess in predicting the India-Pakistan match in favour of India.
The ESPN website had regular video clips on the games named Match Day each. The presenter was an Indian but not an ex-cricket star. He had Ajay Agarkar, Rahul Dravid and Saun Tait as regulars in these video presentations. In pre-final assessment, they were all animated in underpinning India's undeniable superiority in batting and Pakistan's better bowling but balancing both, gave the nod heavily in favour of an Indian victory. They were simply enamoured by Kohli's batting genius to see little beyond that!
They posted a few videos while the match was going on. It was interesting to see them commenting while the Pakistanis were demolishing the Indians. Their faces were devoid of all enthusiasm that was there in their pre-final predictions when they were so certain of an Indian victory. These commentators should watch the replay of their videos to see how subjective they were on what they had said in those videos and how even their body language changed when the results were going against their predictions and their hopes.
Other commentators and cricket scribes did not help the cricket fans enjoy the games in the championship, often misleading them with their subjective and preconceived notions about the games and players. Bangladesh's games were covered condescendingly as the team was just there and had no hopes going anywhere notwithstanding the fact that Tamim Iqbal was the third highest scorer in the tournament playing one game less than the two top scorers, Sharma and Dhawan. Shakib and Mahmudullah were the only batsmen to score separate centuries in the same game and also scored the highest partnership of the tournament that should have put their batting at par with the top Indian batsmen.
Therefore, it was good for cricket that the Pakistanis humiliated the Indians because they needed to be brought down to earth and the commentators too. India had a good team undoubtedly, perhaps extraordinary, but their defeats at the hands of Pakistan by the humungous margin of 180 runs and earlier to Sri Lanka where it failed to defend 323 should have made them feel that they are very much beatable. Thus Bangladesh could be more than a match for them on its day, Kohli, Dhawan and Sharma notwithstanding with Tamim, Shakib and Musfiqur firing instead. The Indians and the commentators should remind themselves that cricket is, after all, a game of glorious uncertainties.
POSTSCRIPT: In ESPN's final Match Day video, Rahul Dravid, Ajit Agarkar and Shaun Tait appeared with a lift in their body language leaving behind the disappointment that was there when India was losing. Nevertheless, Agarkar gave too much importance to the reprieve that Fakhar Zaman got from the no-ball caught out to offset India's 99 per cent chance of winning before the game started. The truth of the final was only the foolhardy would choose a clear favourite between India and Pakistan and the commentators were foolhardy in predicting an Indian victory in the manner that they did.
The writer is a former Ambassador.
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